What would London look like if it was the other way up?
It would look like this.
What I did
I took the Greater London boundary (red).
I rotated it through 180°, centred on Charing Cross. (click to embiggen)
Places that would no longer be in London
» Uxbridge, Ickenham, Harefield, Ruislip
» Enfield Wash, Enfield Lock, Chingford
» Collier Row, Harold Wood, Harold Hill, Hornchurch, Upminster
» Chelsfield, Green Street Green, Biggin Hill, Old Coulsdon, Chessington
Places that would now be in London
» Carpenders Park, Bushey, Oxhey, Radlett, Borehamwood, Cuffley
» Buckhurst Hill, Loughton, Grange Hill
» Purfleet, Dartford, Swanley, South Darenth
» Woodmansterne, Stoneleigh
» West Molesey, Walton-on-Thames, Sunbury, Ashford, Staines, Wraysbury
And how far would the tube stretch?
What I did
I visited a site called Trainspose.
It lets you superimpose maps of Metro systems on other cities.
I tried to keep the Circle line much the same. (you can have a lot of fun with this site)
North of the river there'd only be tube lines out to Leytonstone (Richmond), Southgate (Morden), Golders Green (Brixton) and Heathrow (Dagenham).
But south of the river the tube would stretch as far as Kempton Park, Cobham, Richmond Park, Croydon, Beckenham, Bromley, Eltham, Bexleyheath, Erith, Swanley, Lullingstone and Wrotham.
Some would say that'd be a big improvement.
Obviously if you rotate London and the tube through 180°, all the stations end up in the same place.
At London Bridge station ministers and designers mingled with the general public beside a Hornby train set, which is the largest train anyone's physically branded yet.
Lots of people on social media had thoughts about the new branding.
I've concealed my opinion amid 20 other comments I read yesterday.
• Looks like someone knocked over a pile of paint pots in B&Q.
• It looks great - an iconic British image for our publicly-owned railways.
• This looks faffy. And very garish.
• Not as bad as I feared but still looks like it was designed only with one train shape in mind.
• Controversy as I don’t hate the new proposed GBR brand and livery.
• "Designed in-house at the DfT" yeah... you can tell.
• There a lot to like here: Loving the return of double arrow and Rail Alphabet.
• Still think there needs to be some variation by speed and regionally.
• Sweet mother, GB News are operating trains now!
• The GBR livery seems to be the same shapes as TransPennine but with some fills changed in Paint.
• It's fine.
• Minimal would have been so so much better.
• Would be nice to see local trains in local colours with GBR kept for cross country services.
• Reminds me of the Olympic teams, which seems like an acceptable level of patriotism without going down the flag shagger route.
• To be fair I feared worse.
• I’m in favour of this, although it’ll look pathetic/insane on a two-car Class 150 pootling through Nunthorpe.
• The worst aspect has got to be that long diagonal white wedge. Imagine how jarring it will appear while the train is in motion.
• Awful corporate nationalist slop.
• Why isn't the double arrow symbol aligned so its horizontal bars match the x-height of the text?
• I'm afraid this livery seems more about vanity than it does about the needs of the passenger.
• Frankly I don't care what colour the trains are or what branding GBR is going to use. More importantly, do the trains run reliably?
Don't fret, this isn't the final design, it's work in progress. As Tim Dunn messaged yesterday...
Yesterday I nipped over to @transportgovuk to have a look at some #GBR branding development work. What's missing from the narrative of it being touted as a "brand reveal" is that it's more of a "look and feel": it certainly hasn't been finessed creatively yet. Reading between the lines yesterday is that these concepts will be developed by a GBR brand and marketing team; but since the org doesn't yet exist, and the people haven't yet been appointed, this is a loose starting point for them to work from.
If you have any thoughts, here's a special comments box for men over 50. comments
Everyone else, feel free to comment below.
I understand some readers weren't especially interested in yesterday's post.
Today I offer five different posts in the hope that nobody feels the need to complain again.
Is this London's most fractional speed limit?
Drivers entering Ruxley Manor are asked not to exceed 4¾mph. This seems an extraordinarily precise request.
Speed limits are normally a multiple of 5 and invariably whole numbers, so to request just under 5mph seems plain weird. Most cars can't register non-integer speeds anyway, and even on a dial the necessary nuance is impossible to distinguish.
The 4¾mph limit may be to encourage drivers to stay below 5mph. It may be a joke. It may be because the pedestrian approach to Ruxley Manor is dangerously substandard because the owners refuse to make room for pavements. It's not a metric conversion thing because 4.75mph = 7.64kmh which is even more fractional.
Whatever, I can't think of any other speed limit anywhere that's even "something and a half miles an hour", let alone this absurd "and three quarters".
DLR rolling stock debacle shortens more trains
Dozens of new DLR trains were meant to be in operation by now, their chief purpose to replace old rolling stock and increase capacity. Alas only three have made it into passenger service and they've since been withdrawn as a precautionary measure due to a braking issue in wet weather. This is becoming more of an issue because 18 of the oldest DLR units have already been sent for scrap and the remainder are almost life-expired, so TfL are trying to squeeze as much use out of them as possible.
In July all Stratford to Beckton trains were cut from the timetable, resulting in 10 minute gaps on the Beckton branch, and the frequency of trains between Stratford and Canary Wharf was reduced. These were meant to be temporary measures introduced to coincide with the start of the summer holidays, but five months later they're still in place. And now we have a new cut.
Trains between Bank and Lewisham are to be reduced in length from three carriages to two over Christmas and the New Year. TfL's official advice is to "allow extra time for your journey as trains may be busier than normal", also to consider travelling off-peak where possible. This sacrifice will help preserve the remaining time buffer on the oldest trains, but is also an admission of how close we're getting to not having enough rolling stock to run a safe timetable. Pray that any operational issues with the new turquoise trains are sorted soon, else more 'temporary' reductions in service will be needed before things get better.
Christmas at Ruxley Manor
Readers in southeast London and northwest Kent may be familiar with Ruxley Manor, the super-duper garden-centre-cum-retail-village on the Maidstone Road that's a massive draw at any time but especially at Christmas. Every autumn they clear out their usual stock and go all out on flogging festive goods across umpteen departments, and the hordes descend. Yes they sell Christmas trees but also Christmas gonks, warm white LED squirrels and Yoda-shaped infinity mirrors. Yes they have thousands of baubles but also winter-wrapped woodland creatures, microlight pinecones and faux china gingerbread houses. It's entirely superfluous and it's all being snapped up by beaming suburban folk with surplus cash to burn.
One highlight is the model railway layout bedecked with snow and miniature cottages, complete with two perspex domes where small children can creep under the table and pop up in the middle. It looks enchanting but is really a sales pitch to sell Lemax Christmas Villages, a twee nostalgic world assembled from collectable buildings including a Pop-Up Christmas Cookie Shop (£34.99), Santa Carousel (£79.99) and Ludwig's Wooden Nutcracker Factory (£99.99). Elsewhere the gold twist reindeer come with an exhortation to "consider lighting up your front drive", and if anything doesn't illuminate there's probably a more expensive version that does.
This is mainstream pickings for the outer suburbs, also catnip for those who only come to browse and admire. I can well imagine traipsing round something similar on the edge of Norwich. But the more I explored the more I sighed at the enormous amounts being frittered away on festive fripperies, and wondered what that money could provide if it were spent on something more useful. One can only admire Ruxley Manor's business sense, but if you ever need evidence that some people could afford to be taxed more without damaging their standard of living, you only need to head to the outskirts of London in December. And try not to come home with a Pre-Lit Snowy Yule Log or a Mains-Powered Bratwurst Market Kiosk.
What are boys called these days?
Sourced from the selection of names on the rack of personalised die-cast lorries at Ruxley Manor.
On Friday the Mayor made a big splash launching a new high-capacity electric ferry crossing between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf.
It's his replacement for an over-optimistic footbridge that was never going to be built because it would have been cripplingly expensive. Now we have a new ferry and a new pier at less than 10% of the price, shuttling across the river every 10 minutes just like its diesel predecessor. This one's got space for 100 bikes, which is approximately the number that use the free Silvertown cycle bus every day so let's hope some cyclists actually turn up. I turned up.
Alas it wasn't running, the previous boat was. Apparently the electric vessel "will be progressively phased into operation, with full operation and exclusivity of the route targeted for Spring 2026." And they haven't even started route-sharing yet because, according to Tom Edwards, "the electric ferry will start carrying passengers early in 2026 after crew training." Maybe the Mayor should have launched it next year instead, because nobody'll be catching it yet.
location: Borehamwood, Herts WD6 1EB [map] open: noon-6pm Tue, Wed, Thu (or 10am-3pm Sat) until: 9 May 2026 admission: free 5-word summary: actual Walford props and memories see inside: on YouTube
They love a good local exhibition at Elstree & Borehamwood Museum, despite the challenges of a tiny room. In 2022 the volunteers focused on the unbuilt Northern line extension, complete with working model railway layout, and more recently a Tipsy Nipper formed the centrepiece of The Story of Elstree Aerodrome. At present they're offering a full-on celebration of EastEnders, partly because it's the show's 40th anniversary year but mainly because the BBC film their top soap just 200 metres away.
The big central object on this occasion is Martin's fruit and veg stall (which is no longer Martin's because [spoilers] he died in the live anniversary episode after the pub exploded). It's not the actual stall, it's a recreation knocked together by museum volunteer Tony, but these are the actual fruit and veg used on the show. It's all plastic to save money, obviously, but sufficiently convincing for television purposes. The boxed fruit selection doesn't allow you to handle Martin's plums but you can pick up his bananas and try flogging his lemons.
At the far end of the room is the Queen Victoria pub. They've had a bit of fun here and provided facemasks of Peggy, Grant, Kat, Alfie, Pat and Mick so you can pretend to pull a pint in character for selfie purposes, which I can confirm I have seen visitors doing. Again it's not the actual bar but those are genuine Luxford & Copley pumps, that is genuine E20 flock wallpaper and the bust of Queen Victoria is real too. Apparently the show's used more than one bust over the years so this may not be the precise Archie Mitchell murder weapon from 2009.
Household items used as violent weapons are however very much present in a separate glass case. Only afficionados will remember the candlestick Claudette nearly killed Gavin with and the carriage clock which Ravi used to kill his stepfather, both displayed alongside the foam version used during the actual head-thwack moment. A more significant presence is the two-pronged meat thermometer used to despatch Keanu on Christmas Day 2023, here presented on a scarlet cloth.
Sonia's trumpet has only ever been used to damage eardrums but is perhaps the most significant prop on display. Other costume icons include Dot Cotton's handbag and beige coat, a pair of Pat Butcher's earrings and the fluffy wedding dress Sharon wore on Meat Thermometer day. A few behind the scenes secrets are additionally exposed including the designer's mock-up for the pub interior following the 40th anniversary explosion and a looping video showing the cast preparing to broadcast live.
But what really caught my eye was this streetmap of Walford. And the more I stared at it it, the more I thought "You what?!"
It's a prop of some kind, possibly from one of the many cab companies that have been based in E20 over the years. I tried to date it but the adverts down the side don't match with any particular era of the show. Albert Square is in the middle, surrounded by Bridge Street, Turpin Road and Victoria Road in their approximately correct arrangement, But everything beyond that is fictional including dozens of additional streets, multiple railways and even a canal... and all I can say is I bet the cartographer never intended for it to be scrutinised up close.
• As well as Albert Square there's also Gladstone Square, Lower Square and Lindsay Square, identically-shaped and abutting the railway but disconnected which'll be why we've never heard of them. On the other side of the tracks is Cannon Square, bigger and glimpse-able across the allotments, but similarly never mentioned.
• A nearby grid of terraced streets is called the 'Emma Chant Estate', whoever she was.
• Walford General Hospital is less than 200m from Albert Square, so goodness knows why characters pay for taxis to get there and why ambulances take so long to arrive.
• The East Junction Canal passes through Walford, which is probably the most believable feature of the lot.
• There are two stations, not just Walford East but also Walford South which looks to be less than a minute away by train. Ridiculously the railway crosses the canal twice between the two stations.
• The railway branches into three different lines just south of Walford East station, two of these matching the viaducts that cross Bridge Street and Turpin Road on set.
The street names are weird too. Some sound eminently believable for an East End neighbourhood, like Lincoln Street, Cole Street, Parsons Road and Whiteside Avenue. Others sound odd like Spickle Road, Mustard Road, Filigree Street and Blanket Street. Most unnerving is that several streetnames appear twice on the map, no more than a few hundred metres apart. There are two Upper Parades, two Clay Roads, two Alabaster Streets, two Cole Streets, two Castle Parades, two Eastcoat Terraces, two Rowe Avenues and two Albert's Avenue. There are also two Arnold Crescents, both of which are straight, and two North Roads, neither of which runs north-south.
I can only assume that the map was only ever meant to be seen in the background and was knocked up fairly haphazardly by a graphic designer. If her name was Emma Chant, that wouldn't surprise me. It means we can't alas add this to the canon of official EastEnders cartography, which to the best of my knowledge consists of a)confirmation that Walford East station takes the place of Bromley-by-Bow on the tube map. b)confirmation that the E20 postcode lies to the north of E15.
My favourite quirk on the map is the compass rose which points north, straight up the map. If that's true then Bridge Street, where the pub and launderette are, must point west. However when the Albert Square set was built the real Bridge Street at BBC Elstree definitely pointed southeast. And when a new set opened for filming in 2022, now with proper buildings, it was reoriented so that Bridge Street points northeast. It means that even though BBC designers tried to make the new set look as much like the old set as possible, the sun rises and sets in a completely different direction so the shadows aren't consistent.
After my trip to the museum I crossed the High Street and walked up Clarendon Road for a couple of minutes to see if I could spot the two sets in real life. It's a dead ordinary terraced street but if you look beyond a short modern cul-de-sac, above someone's garage, you can see the rooftops of the flats on George Street on the old set. Meanwhile the new set can be seen up a short private access road very close by, signed 'BBC Elstree Studios' and with a turnstile at the far end where employees go in and out. That's the back of Dot Cotton's old house over the razor wire.
And for an even better look, head to the runty greenspace that is Clarendon Park. It has lovely gates, a carved grizzly bear and the odd bench, but also a heck of a lot of chimneypots visible over the back hedge. The nearest house belongs to Phil Mitchell, while the modern-looking wall is the back of the former B&B where the Truemans and Foxes live. Matt from Londonist visited in 2021 when the hedge was a lot lower and a lot more was visible, including the front of the Queen Vic. That's now better concealed but Albert Square is always visible, and all you have to do is pop down to Borehamwood and look up. Alternatively there's a much easier-to-see exhibition at the museum until 9th May, and every visitor gets to walk away with a free 40th anniversary beermat too.
45 Squared 43) WINCHESTER SQUARE, SE1
Borough of Southwark, 20m×20m
I've visited several very new squares for this feature but where is London's oldest? It might be here.
Winchester Palace was built on the south bank of the Thames, just west of Southwark Cathedral, so that the Bishop of Winchester had a comfy base when he came to London. An early incumbent was Henry of Blois, the brother of King Stephen, who held the bishopric for over 40 years in the 12th century. A magnificentpalace grew up around the original Great Hall, with subsequent clerics adding bedrooms, wine cellars, a brew-house, butchery, tennis court, bowling alley and pleasure gardens. A famous illustration from 1647 shows a chimneyed complex with two courtyards. The bishop also oversaw the Liberty of the Clink, an independent neighbourhood with its own brothels, theatres and infamous prison.
Alas the remains of the episcopal residence were mostly destroyed by fire in 1814 and the Blitz did it no favours either, so all that remains is the shell of the Great Hall and a rather splendid rose window. Passing tourists are often pleasantly surprised.
Winchester Square, meanwhile, hides generally unnnoticed on the other side of an intrusive postmodern office block. It looks little more than a cobbled car park, a dead end for deliveries, but this is no random backyard. Because it turns out Winchester Square exists on the not-quite square footprint of Winchester Palace's original inner courtyard, and that's why it might just be the oldest square in London.
The oldest thing here (other than the shape) might be the brick warehouse on the south side. Alternatively it might be the granite setts underfoot, which go on and on and might be the most extensive cobbly surface in London. Or more likely it's the cast-iron bollard in the corner, repurposed from a cannon and inscribed 'Wardens of S. Saviours 1827', which dates back to when this was a grimy alleyway leading down to St Mary Overy Dock. Other than that it's depressingly modern throughout... a lot of back doors, a lot of bins and the occasional discarded Lime bike.
I walked round the perimeter and it's not nice. The north side has a locked undercroft where forgotten hardware is stored, accessed via a keypad, also a pile of binbags and flattened cardboard boxes wrapped in yellow tape. The west side has smeared windows, a cluttered bin store and the fire exit from a Italian restaurant. The east side has a Basingstoke-style office block and a blue-clad apartment block called Tennis Court on the site of the bishop's tennis court. And the south side has yet more bin bags and the most authentic windows, having originally been one of London's two fruit auction houses. Its owners J.O. Sims were once fined £75,000 for excavating their basement without scheduled monument consent, an offence which came to light when a passer-by noticed material of archaeological interest being carried out to a skip.
The best known tenant here is Hawksmoor, the premium steak restaurant, who moved into the converted fruit warehouse in 2016. Patrons enter at the front on Winchester Walk and order £57 rib-eye with a £7 side of chips, or perhaps a renowned Sunday roast for under thirty quid. As feasts go it's decent but a mere echo of the grand banquets once held here in the bishop's palace, for example at the wedding of King James I of Scotland to Joan Beaufort in 1424. Meanwhile Hawksmoor's uncooked flesh gets delivered round the back in Winchester Square, which continues on its long decline from prestigious noble courtyard to somewhere all the rubbish gets chucked out after service. Ancient, but no longer distinguished.
The diamond geezer guide to England's games in next year's World Cup
Group stage
Wed 17 June:England v Croatia(Dallas, 9pm) Tue 23 June:England v Ghana(Boston, 9pm) Sat 27 June:England v Panama(New Jersey, 10pm) (we got lucky with those kick-off times, Scotland's first match starts at 2am!)
Round of 32
If England top Group L then.... Wed 1 July:England v Algeria or Argentina or Austria or Bolivia or Cape Verde or Colombia or Curaçao or DR Congo or Ecuador or France or Germany or Iraq or Ivory Coast or Jamaica or Jordan or New Caledonia or Norway or Portugal or Saudi Arabia or Senegal or Spain or Suriname or Uruguay or Uzbekistan(Atlanta, 5pm)
Otherwise... England v Colombia or DR Congo or Jamaica or New Caledonia or Portugal or Uzbekistan
...on Fri 3 July at midnight in Toronto (if England come second in Group L)
...or Sat 4 July at 2.30am in Kansas City (if England are one of the eight best placed third-placed teams)
(or England v National Shame if we've gone home by then)
Round of 16(one of the following)
Mon 6 July:England v Algeria or Argentina or Austria or Bolivia or Cape Verde or Colombia or Curaçao or Czech Republicor or DR Congo or Denmark or Ecuador or France or Germany or Iraq or Ivory Coast or Jamaica or Jordan or Mexico or New Caledonia or North Macedonia or Norway or Portugal or Republic of Ireland or Saudi Arabia or Senegal or South Africa or South Korea or Spain or Suriname or Uruguay or Uzbekistan(Mexico City, 1am) Mon 6 July:England v Algeria or Argentina or Austria or Cape Verde or Jordan or Saudi Arabia or Spain or Uruguay(Dallas, 8pm) Tue 7 July:England v Albania or Algeria or Argentina or Austria or Belgium or Bolivia or Bosnia-Herzegovina or Canada or Curaçao or Ecuador or Egypt or France or Germany or Iran or Iraq or Italy or Ivory Coast or Japan or Jordan or Netherlands or New Zealand or Northern Ireland or Norway or Poland or Qatar or Senegal or Sweden or Switzerland or Suriname or Tunisia or Ukraine or Wales(Vancouver, 9pm)
Quarter Final(one of the following)
Fri 10 July:England v any team except Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Haiti, Italy, Morocco, Northern Ireland, Qatar, Scotland, Switzerland or Wales(Los Angeles, 8pm) Sat 11 July:England v Albania or Bolivia or Brazil or Curaçao or Ecuador or France or Germany or Haiti or Iraq or Ivory Coast or Japan or Morocco or Netherlands or Norway or Poland or Scotland or Senegal or Sweden or Suriname or Tunisia or Ukraine(Miami, 10pm) Sun 12 July:England v Algeria or Argentina or Australia or Austria or Belgium or Cape Verde or Egypt or Jordan or Kosovo or Iran or New Zealand or Paraguay or Romania or Saudi Arabia or Slovakia or Spain or Turkey or United States or Uruguay(Kansas City, 2am)
Semi Final(probably a bit optimistic here)
Tue 14 July:England v any of 63 teams(Dallas, 8pm) Wed 15 July:England v any of 63 teams(Atlanta, 8pm) Sat 18 July:England v any of 63 teams(3rd place play-off in Miami)
Final(Emperor Donald Trump presiding)
Sun 19 July: England v any of 63 teams(New Jersey, 8pm)
I've been to see some art.
I needed a break from writing about trains.
White Cube (Bermondsey)
★★☆☆☆ Howardena Pindell: Off the Grid (until 18 January)
If you like spotty abstract canvases sparsely hung, Howardena's retrospective hits the mark. If not, don't expect to be here long. Howardena's largest works are made from tiny circles hole-punched from coloured paper, a ready resource she once described as "very small points of color and light". They form either a pleasing blur or a pixellated mess, depending, or occasionally what looks like badly-painted 1970s wallpaper. I admired her resourcefulness and tonal sense, if little else. White Cube (Mason's Yard)
★★☆☆☆ Beatriz Milhazes: Além do Horizonte (until 17 January)
As usual, two rooms. Upstairs a reflective floral composition incorporating a selfie-friendly gold leaf motif. Downstairs more traditional collage in psychedelic shades with textile-inspired chunks and popping eyes. It's no must-see but I've seen a lot worse here.
Serpentine Galleries
★☆☆☆☆ Peter Doig: House of Music (until 8 February)
The paintings are instantly forgettable, the only thing worth coming for is the music. A curated selection plays on salvaged sound systems and you can either mingle or take a seat at speakeasy tables. On Sundays real musicians turn up but you won't get in. I most enjoyed a curator explaining to a group of schoolboys what loudspeakers were. Quality of associated explanatory freebie: top notch.
★★★☆☆ Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley: THE DELUSION (until 18 January)
This is not normal art, this is a multi-roomed walk-through "video game" exploring contentious opinions and how best to confront them. It helps to read the instruction booklet before you approach one of the interactive exhibits, or just act on instinct and take the freebie home as an inclusivity primer. The general idea is to talk to people and express yourself as practice for real world engagement, perhaps by aiming a lampshade, rolling an imaginary ball or slamming the door on a malign influencer. Best visited when there isn't a school party hogging the Democracy Room.
Newport Street Gallery
★★★★☆ Fairey/Hirst/Invader: Triple Trouble (until 29 March)
Gallery owner Damien Hirst has collaborated with two street art pioneers in this blokey mishmash down Lambeth way. It's bold, brash and terribly self-indulgent, but not indulgently terrible. Hirst is still arranging objects in cases, Fairey likes to produce sloganed iconography and Invader just makes pixellated Space Invaders in a variety of formats. Put 'em together and you get, fairly obviously, a giant Space Invader in a tank of formaldehyde... but also Orwellian mosaics, spotty murals and raised finger icons. On my visit the mirrored case with shelves of tiny white pills, all stamped with a Space Invader, was getting all the attention. You'll either love it or hate it.
Barbican Curve
★★★★☆ Lucy Raven: Rounds (until 4 January)
You have to sit through a nannyish warning before they'll let you into this one, although admittedly the bright light was dazzling and the loud noise was abruptly cacophonous. Lucy's installation is in two parts, first an industrial-scale centrifugal spinner with a halogen blaze, quickly stepped past. The main act is a cinema with a bank of raised seating because you could be here for 40 minutes if you watch the lot. I got lucky and arrived just before the loop began again, otherwise the narrative would have been all wrong. I eventually understood that I was watching an "undamming", the sudden release of water from a dynamited Californian dam and the subsequent transformation of the landscape downstream. A brilliantly long sequence followed the front of a torrential wave as it rushed down the valley, instantly transforming quiet pools to a white torrent. I read this as a metaphor for irreversible catastrophe, whereas Lucy actually envisaged themes of global expansionism and cultural reappropriation. Mainly I enjoyed it because I like rivers, even all the way to the Pacific and back, and you may not have the patience.
Last month it was announced that 49 more stations in southeast England would be enabled for contactless travel starting on 14th December. 20 of those stations have just been withdrawn from the rollout after Greater Anglia discovered "issues" that could have prevented the technology from working as intended. But the new fares accompanying this change are being introduced tomorrow anyway, at all 49 stations, introducing changes that rail companies generally aren't shouting about. [map]
1) Single tickets will cost half of a return ticket
Today a single fare generally costs more than half of a return fare. From tomorrow it'll cost exactly half whether you buy a paper ticket or tap in. This means the contactless system doesn't need to remember whether you're coming or going - all legs cost the same.
Examples of Off-Peak Day Return fares from London terminals
station
fare today
fare tomorrow
change
Aylesbury
£31.30
£14.70+£14.70=£29.40
↓£1.90
Chelmsford
£28.10
£12.90+£12.90=£25.80
↓£2.30
Dorking
£15.50
£7.90+£7.90=£15.80
↑30p
E Grinstead
£21.40
£9.90+£9.90=£19.80
↓£1.60
Luton
£21.10
£10.50+£10.50=£21.00
↓10p
Reigate
£15.80
£7.60+£7.60=£15.20
↓60p
Most of the changes are quite small and most are in passengers' favour. The largest saving I've found is on a day return to Witham which'll be £2.90 cheaper tomorrow. So far so good.
2) Evening peak times will apply 16:00 to 19:00, Monday to Friday, from or via a London station.
Previously the return portion of an off-peak return could be used on any train out of London. Now it can't be used for trains departing London between 4pm and 7pm on weekdays. If you try using contactless during the evening peak you'll be charged a peak fare instead. This is bad news for people living outside London returning home in the evening (but won't affect London residents going the other way).
For example, suppose you're travelling into London and back from Stevenage.
» Currently an Off-Peak Return costs £22.80 and you can return on any train.
» From next week an Off-Peak Return costs £20.00 but you can't travel home between 1600 and 1859.
» If you use contactless for the same journey it'll now cost £10.00 into London but £14.40 back out in the evening.
» That's a total of £24.40, i.e. £1.60 more than you'd have paid last week.
In general, avoid peak travel out of London and you'll be paying less for your Off-Peak Return next week. Travel home in the peak and you'll be paying more.
3) Super Off-Peak tickets will no longer be available
Not all routes have Super Off-Peak fares but those that do are losing them tomorrow. This will affect Thameslink, Great Northern and Greater Anglia services. Returns on these lines are cheaper at weekends. Greater Anglia additionally offer Super Off-Peak fares on weekday trains arriving into Liverpool Street after 12 noon. But not any more, all gone, it's ordinary Off-Peak Returns only.
Examples of vanishing Super Off-Peak Return fares from London terminals
station
Super Off-Peak fare today
Off-Peak fare tomorrow
change
Baldock
£19.10
£22.60
↑£3.50
Bishops Stortford
£23.30
£27.80
↑£4.50
Harlington
£19.10
£24.40
↑£5.30
Southend Victoria
£24.50
£26.80
↑£2.30
Witham
£32.10
£35.00
↑£2.90
That's an increase of anything between 10% and 25% when travelling at the weekend. The removal of Super Off-Peak tickets is the biggest loss in this fare rationalisation project.
It also introduces some ridiculous anomalies. For example you can still get a Super Off-Peak fare to Bedford, two stops beyond the new contactless limit. This means that from tomorrow it'll be £2 dearer to go to Harlington at the weekend than to go 12 miles further to Bedford.
And it all starts tomorrow, even on lines where contactless won't now be introduced before next summer. So think before you tap.
It's time once again for the annual splurge of passenger data from across Britain's railway network, this batch covering the period April 2024 to March 2025.
Everything changed in 2022 when Crossrail opened, firing a purple bombshell that upended former norms and shook up the list of busiest stations. Any interchange between tube and Crossrail counts as entering or exiting a National Rail station so some mighty distortions are skewing the numbers.
The UK's ten busiest National Rail stations (2024/25)(with changes since 2023/24) 1) -- Liverpool Street (98m) 2) ↑2 Waterloo (70.4m) 3) ↓1 Paddington (69.9m) 4) ↓1 Tottenham Court Road (68m) 5) ↑2 London Bridge (55m) 6) -- Victoria (54m) 7) ↓2 Stratford (51m) 8) -- Farringdon (50m) 9) -- Bond Street (43m) 10) -- Euston (40m)
Six of the top 10 are Crossrail stations, the arrival of purple trains having displaced the usual trio of Waterloo, London Bridge and Victoria from the summit. Liverpool Street retains the crown it snatched in 2022, its complement of commuters boosted by through services on the Elizabeth line. With 98 million passengers it's massively ahead of the rest of the pack and I suspect will be the UK's busiest station every year for the foreseeable future.
Waterloo has rebounded to 2nd place but is only marginally ahead of Tottenham Court Road, which wasn't even a National Rail station until three years ago. London Bridge and Victoria also demonstrate the importance of commuting south of the river. Stratford, which enjoyed a chart-topping year during the pandemic, drops to seventh although that's still an impressive ranking for a station outside central London. Farringdon is boosted by being the sole link between Crossrail and Thameslink. Whitechapel, amazingly, lurks just outside the top 10 at 12th.
If you're wondering about other Crossrail stations in the listings the next busiest is Canary Wharf (25th), then come Ealing Broadway (27th), Reading (33rd), Woolwich (34th), Romford (38th), Abbey Wood (39th), Ilford (43rd) and Custom House (51st).
If you're interested in comparing London's rail termini, the ranking is Liverpool Street > Waterloo > Paddington > London Bridge > Victoria > Euston > St Pancras > King's Cross > Charing Cross > Blackfriars > Marylebone > Fenchurch Street > Moorgate > Cannon Street. All but Moorgate and Cannon Street are in the national Top 50.
The UK's ten busiest National Rail 'flows' (2024/25) 1) Tottenham Court Road ⇄ Liverpool St (8.7m) 2) Paddington ⇄ Tottenham Court Road (7.2m) 3) Bond Street ⇄ Tottenham Court Road (6.8m) 4) Liverpool Street ⇄ Stansted Airport (6.5m) 5) Paddington ⇄ Bond Street (5.6m) 6) Victoria ⇄ Gatwick Airport (5.5m) 7) Liverpool St ⇄ Stratford (5.2m) 8) West Ham ⇄ Barking (5.1m) 9) Farringdon ⇄ Liverpool St (5.1m) 10) Paddington ⇄ Farringdon (4.8m)
A recent innovation to the annual dataset, these are the most popular journeys on the UK rail network. Seven of the top 10 are on the Elizabeth line, sometimes just one stop, and the top three all involve travelling to/from Tottenham Court Road. Two airport connections are the only journeys that extend outside London. Perhaps the most unexpected inclusion is West Ham ⇄ Barking, most of which involves passengers changing to/from the Jubilee line.
The top three flows outside London are Birmingham New Street ⇄ Coventry (2.4m), Edinburgh Waverley ⇄ Glasgow Queen Street (2.4m) and Birmingham New Street ⇄ Wolverhampton (1.9m).
The UK's ten busiest National Rail stations outside London (2024/25) 1) -- Birmingham New Street (37m) 2) -- Manchester Piccadilly (27.4m) 3) ↑1 Leeds (27.3m) 4) ↓1 Glasgow Central (25m) 5) -- Edinburgh (23m) 6) -- Gatwick Airport (21m) 7) -- Brighton (15.3m) 8) -- Glasgow Queen Street (15.0m) 9) ↑1 Liverpool Central (14.8m) 10) ↑1 Liverpool Lime Street (14.4m)
Poor old Birmingham New Street had always been in the national top 10 but Crossrail has again nudged it out. It's now in 13th place overall, with Manchester Piccadilly 15th, Leeds 16th and Glasgow Central 17th. Some of these stations have very similar passenger numbers so don't read too much into this year's shuffles.
The next 10: Reading, Cardiff Central, Bristol Temple Meads, Cambridge, Newcastle, York, Sheffield, Stansted Airport, Manchester Victoria, Oxford
311 provincial stations served over a million passengers during 2024/25, thirty more than in the previous year. For comparison 226 London stations exceeded a million passengers. In surprising London/not-London comparisons, West Ham was busier than York, Seven Sisters was busier than Nottingham, Lewisham was busier than Leicester, Putney was busier than Preston, Norwood Junction was busier than Norwich and Purley was busier than Plymouth.
London's ten busiest National Rail stations that aren't central London termini or part of Crossrail (2024/25) 1) -- Clapham Junction (24.5m) 2) -- Highbury & Islington (24.0m) 3) -- East Croydon (21m) 4) -- Canada Water (19m) 5) -- Vauxhall (16m) 6) -- Barking (14m) 7) -- Wimbledon (13m) 8) ↑1 Finsbury Park (11.2m) 9) ↓1 West Ham (11.1m) 10) -- Richmond (10m)
Once you strip out central London termini and Crossrail a rather different picture appears and rankings are more stable. Half of the top 10 are Overground stations. All but two are also tube stations, where everyone changing to or from the tube technically counts as an entrance or exit even if passengers don't leave the station. Clapham Junction's total would almost double if the data included interchanges.
The next 10: Tottenham Hale, Seven Sisters, Surbiton, Shoreditch High Street, Willesden Junction, Lewisham, Shepherd's Bush, Bromley South, Peckham Rye, Old Street
London's ten least busy Overground stations (2024/25) 1) -- Emerson Park (303,000) 2) -- South Hampstead (478,000) 3) -- Headstone Lane (517,000) 4) ↑1 Wandsworth Road (610,000) 5) ↑2 Penge West (635,000) 6) ↓2 South Kenton (643,000) 7) ↑2 Stamford Hill (676,100) 8) ↓2 Hatch End (696,000) 9) ↑1 South Acton (747,000) 10) ↓2 Kilburn High Road (758,000)
Emerson Park on the runty Romford-Upminster line remains at the bottom of the Overground heap by some distance. It's the only one of these ten stations whose passenger numbers have decreased. South Hampstead's total is particularly pitiful for a zone 2 station. South Kenton is also one of the tube's least used stations, and combining numbers from the two modes would knock it out of this list. Half of the ten least busy Overground stations are on the Lioness line.
The least busy station on each Overground line (2024/25) Liberty: Emerson Park (303,000) Lioness: South Hampstead (478,000) Windrush: Wandsworth Road (610,000) Weaver: Stamford Hill (676,100) Mildmay: South Acton (747,000) Suffragette: Crouch Hill (901,000)
A year after the Overground lines were given separate names, the Suffragette line has the busiest least used station.
London's ten least busy National Rail stations (2024/25) 1) -- Sudbury & Harrow Road (23000) 2) -- Drayton Green (23300) 3) -- South Greenford (52000) 4) -- Sudbury Hill Harrow (54000) 5) -- Morden South (76000) 7) ↑1 Coulsdon Town (98000) 6) ↓1 Birkbeck (105000) 8) -- Reedham (106000) 9) -- Castle Bar Park (113000) 10) -- Crews Hill (119000)
Sudbury & Harrow Road is once again London's least used station. This unloved halt sees a measly four trains in the morning peak and four in the evening peak, so most locals use the nearby Piccadilly line station instead. Drayton Green is very close behind, a station that's only a short walk from West Ealing where all trains terminate. South Greenford and Castle Bar Park are also on the little-used Greenford branch. Coulsdon Town and Reedham continue to suffer from a post-pandemic reduction in services on the Tattenham Corner line.
The next 20: South Merton, Woodmansterne, West Ruislip, Greenford, St Helier, South Ruislip, Northolt Park, Knockholt, Sundridge Park, Belmont, Bromley North, Ravensbourne, Sutton Common, West Sutton, Kenley, Wimbledon Chase, Riddlesdown, Emerson Park, Woolwich Dockyard, Haydons Road
And now outside London...
The National Rail stations with NO passengers in 2024/25 0) Stanlow and Thornton [three years running] 0) Teesside Airport [two years running] 0) Altnabreac
Stanlow & Thornton, an industrial halt in Cheshire, is entirely surrounded by the UK's second largest oil refinery. It used to get a few peak services but has been closed since February 2022 "due to safety concerns of the footbridge which is the only entry point to the station". Teesside Airport lost its weekly train in May 2022 after the westbound platform closed due to safety issues. Its eastbound platform had closed in 2017 after the footbridge was deemed unsafe, cutting the number of weekly trains from two to one. Technically both stations are only temporarily closed, but given their miserable passenger record it's hard to see anyone stumping up for repairs.
Altnabreac is an exceptionally remote station in the Scottish Highlands, about 20 miles from Wick and Thurso. Train services were suspended in November 2023 due to an access dispute with a neighbouring property. The new owners believed they owned the station platform, blocked the access road and decided that train drivers were honking at them offensively. The legal dispute lingers on, the offending couple having been summoned to Inverness Sheriff Court just last week. Rail services resumed on 6th April 2025, six days after the cut-off for this year's figures, so expect to see Altnabreac with a non-zero total next year.
Here are the true least used.
The UK's ten least busy National Rail stations (2024/25) 1) ↑8 Elton and Orston (68) 2) -- Shippea Hill (76) 3) -- Ince and Elton (98) 4) ↓3 Denton (100) 5) -- Reddish South (102) 6) ↓2 Polesworth (154) 7) -- Chapelton (160) 8) ↓2 Coombe Junction Halt (224) 9) ↑2 Scotscalder (226) 10) ↑3 Beasdale (230)
These are the stations that can't even muster five passengers a week, such is the inaccessibility of their location or the paucity of their service, Most have appeared in this Top 10 on many previous occasions. Elton & Orston was also 2021/22's least used station and is served by just two trains a day, one to Nottingham and one to Skegness. Shippea Hill in Cambridgeshire remains in the doldrums after a brief bump in visitors inspired by being a least used station. Ince and Elton is Stanlow and Thornton's underwhelmed neighbour.
Denton was last year's least used station but has managed to double its passenger total. Along with Reddish South on the Stockport-Stalybridge line it's served by only one train a week in each direction, currently on a Saturday morning. I visited both stations earlier this year, but on a Thursday so I don't count in the data but can at least say I've been.
Polesworth on the West Coast Main Line gets one northbound train before 7am but no southbound trains. Chapelton is a request stop in the Taw Valley south of Barnstaple. Coombe Junction is a unpopulated reversing place between Liskeard and Looe. Scotscalder near Thurso is the least used station in Scotland, taking over from Kildonan. Beasdale is a once-private halt on the West Highland line. For aficionados of least used stations over the years these are all very familiar names.
The next 20: Ardwick, Buckenham, Pilning, Kildonan, Culrain, Duncraig, Invershin, Kinbrace, Rawcliffe, Lochluichart, Barry Links, Locheilside, Achanalt, Hensall, Portsmouth Arms, Roman Bridge, Lelant Saltings, Spooner Row, Thornton Abbey, Kirton Lindsey
Altogether 22 stations failed to attract 10 passengers a week and 117 stations failed to attract 10 passengers a day. But they all soldier on because closing a railway station remains a very tough legal wrangle, and better to have a little-used halt on your doorstep than no station at all.
Billingsgate and Smithfield Market Traders, the City of London Corporation and the Greater London Authority have identified a preferred new site in the Royal Docks in Newham where both markets can locate together.
The relocation of the historic wholesale markets to the proposed new site of Albert Island fulfils the shared ambition of the City of London Corporation and Traders for a new site to be found within the M25, first set out in December 2024.
The move is subject to the successful passage of the Parliamentary Bill to provide for the cessation of the markets at their current sites. Planning permission from Newham Borough Council will also be needed to enable the markets to operate on site.
Not the press release - 04 December 2025 (because it pays to visit the actual places and not just cut and paste)
The central gangway had been sluiced clean and the refrigerated counters were empty but it still reeked of meat. This splendid building is the East Market Hall, designed by Sir Horace Jones in 1868. There's been a meat market on this site for at least 800 years but there won't be after 2028 because the market's closing. The intention is then for the building to become a 'cultural venue', which'll no doubt be simultaneously excellent and excruciating.
Billingsgate lies just downstream of London Bridge and displaced Queenhithe as the City's premier catch-landing spot in the 16th century. The specialist fish market moved indoors in 1849, then shifted to this grand arcaded market hall (with gold-fish weathervanes) in 1875. But it was repurposed for offices in 1982 when the fish market moved out and is currently a "premier events space".
This is Billingsgate Market.
It's in Poplar between the A13 dual carriageway and the Docklands financial cluster. A fish thrown from the rear quay could easily hit Canary Wharf Crossrail station. The market building is an odorous warehouse with a bright yellow roof and opens daily at 5am (Sundays and Mondays excepted). It's surrounded by a lot of parking spaces for vans and fishmongers because land was really cheap round here in 1982. This market too is due to close in 2028 and be replaced by hundreds and hundreds of flats. You might think the City of London Corporation stands make a killing from selling 10 acres of prime development land but no, the land's owned by the borough of Tower Hamlets on payment of an annual ground rent stipulated as "the gift of one fish". Even the market's bin store is large enough to be the footprint of a whopping skyscraper, perhaps called Haddock Heights or Turbot Tower.
This is where Smithfield and Billingsgate Markets were due to go.
It's a site on Chequers Lane in Dagenham amid a seriously scuzzy Thamesside industrial estate. Dagenham Dock station is very close by. Specifically it's a patch of contaminated hardstanding once occupied by Barking Reach Power Station. It wasn't the ideal place for a new market because it's 10 miles east of the City of London, but it does have very good connections to the A13 so was well located for East London slaughtermen. The City of London Corporation selected this as their new market site in 2019, then last year announced they weren't intending to relocate anything and the market traders would have to do without. The site thus remains empty apart a whirly turbine and a huge spoil heap shaped like an artificial white volcano. Sorry the photo's not great but they don't clean the upstairs windows on the EL2 as often as they could.
Yesterday the City announced it had changed its mind.
This is where Smithfield and Billingsgate Markets are now due to go.
This is Albert Island, an isolated post-industrial leftover at the eastern end of the Royal Docks near Gallions Reach station. Ships once entered the Royal Albert Dock on one side of the island and the King George V Dock on the other side. Two of the locks are still operational although hardly anything passes through these days. To the north is Royal Albert Wharf where well over 1000 boxy flats are pretty much complete and occupied. To the south is Galleons Point where not quite so many flats were built in 2003. But the island inbetween remains desolate, abandoned and almost entirely empty, bar the odd decaying warehouse and scraps of overgrown concrete. The intention is that meat and fish be traded here instead.
This is a photo taken yesterday on Albert Island.
I was surprised to get even partial access to the island because the main access road from the Steve Redgrave Bridge is barriered off with signs warning of guard dogs on patrol. But the walkways across the lock from Royal Albert Wharf were open and accessible, just as they used to be when Capital Ring section 15 passed this way. That followed an estuary-side footpath which is now extremely sealed off but it means you may well have been to this dystopian landscape before, probably while very much looking forward to getting out again. On the far side of the lock I found a board listing anachronistic byelaws, an old sign warning about the importance of Rabies Prevention and a quayside where maritime folk once kept busy. It was only possible to walk a short way down the road before retreating, hemmed in between metal railings and peeling boards, but I can confirm that a heck of a lot of remediation needs to take place before anyone trades a lamb shank.
And this is why nobody's building flats here.
Albert Island lies directly on the flightpath into City Airport. What's more the end of the runway is only quarter of a mile away at this point so planes swoop low on approach and/or screech off overhead after takeoff. It thus isn't possible to build any kind of highrise building here, nor is the nearby roar of jet engines starting conducive to buying one. The long-termvision forAlbert Island has therefore been for something non-residential, with ideas including a "state of the art commercial shipyard", a "River Centre for London", a sustainable employment magnet" and a research-based "Ideas Factory". Now it seems two of the City's centuries-old wholesale food markets will be filling much of the space, again with pretty decent ongoing transport connections, once a proper plan has been shaped and agreed.
Having visited yesterday I can confirm that Albert Island is a godforsaken wasteland and any redevelopment should be very welcome. How long it takes to transform is yet to be confirmed, and whether trading in dead animals improves the ambience I'll leave you to decide.
Most London boroughs are named after either large towns or something historically apposite. Not many are named after villages, and one of the humblest of these is Hillingdon.
The original intention had been to call the borough Uxbridge, indeed this had been the Ministry of Housing and Local Government's preferred choice. But of the four constituent authorities only the Municipal Borough of Uxbridge was keen, whereas Hayes and Harlington Urban District, Ruislip-Northwood Urban District and Yiewsley and West Drayton Urban District would all have preferred "almost anything else". Amongst the alternatives put forward were Elthorne, West Middlesex, Heathrow and the frankly obsequious Queensborough (as Heathrow was where the Queen had first set foot in England after her accession). Late in the day 'Hillingdon' was put forward and eventually won a run-off with West Middlesex, hence a small village on the Uxbridge Road is now nominally home to 330,000 people.
Hillingdon gets a mention in the Domesday Book (which is more than Uxbridge does), its population recorded as 2 villagers, 2 smallholders, 1 cottager, 5 other households and 1000 pigs. A church was built here in the mid 13th century, occupying an ideal hilltop site on a well-drained patch of glacial gravels. Uxbridge was soon a larger market town, straddling a key bridging point over the River Colne, but strangely remained part of the parish of Hillingdon until it was split off in 1866. Hillingdon was still an isolated stop on the main road until suburbia encroached in the 1920s, and even now the tube station of the same name is over a mile north of the village centre.
The church on the hilltop is St John The Baptist, its flint tower poking above tall conifers amid a crammed churchyard. Its historical provenance really stands out as you drive along the Uxbridge Road, an endless succession of semis and drab arterial businesses suddenly replaced by a characterful cluster of heritage buildings. In good news the church welcomes visitors daily so anyone can step inside and enjoy a slice of old Middlesex, and perhaps also a coffee if the rector's lurking by the kettle in the south aisle. I could tell it was going to be an interesting building as soon as I spotted three free leaflets ensuring visitors don't miss anything, including the 497 year-old effigy by the altar and the fine detail in the stained glass East Window.
The oldest part of the church is the chancel arch, dated 1270, although it used to be four feet six lower before a young architect by the name of George Gilbert Scott recommended raising it to form the focal point of his enlarged nave. The finest feature is probably the Le Strange Brass, a tomb-top now found in the south aisle, which Pevsner described as "the most ambitious brass of the middle ages to survive in Greater London". The six foot slab depicts the 8th Lord Strange (1444-1479) and his wife Jacquetta, sister of Edward IV's queen Elizabeth, with an additional brasswork of their daughter Anne squeezed into a small gap at the bottom. The font looks to be equally old but is actually a Victorian replica of a 15th century font found in Happisburgh, Norfolk. St John's' carol service is this Sunday if you prefer a more worshipful visit.
The recreation ground beyond the churchyard is called Coney Green, a name thought to be derived from its former use as a rabbit warren. This is also the site of a Palaeolithic settlement, perhaps as substantial as a hillfort, whose earthworks are still evident as a broken bank almost quarter of a mile in length. I struggled to see much of a hump or ditch along the edge of the football pitch, although apparently the cricket pavilion had to be carefully positioned to make sure it didn't damage the embankment. You can see all of this from the top deck of the Superloop, by the way, although it's telling that the SL8 doesn't bother to stop in the village the borough's named after, only at what used to be Hillingdon Heath back down the hill.
Across the road is The Red Lion, a timber-framed coaching inn with pleasingly higgledy frontage. Its key moment in history came on 27th April 1646 when Charles I dropped in while on the run from the New Model Army in Oxford. The king arrived with two close friends, posing as their servant called Harry, having had his signature hair and beard trimmed overnight with scissors in an attempt at a non-royal disguise. The trio spent a few hours drinking here in Hillingdon while trying to plot the best route to meet reinforcements in Newark, a circuitous trip which inevitably didn't end well. Had they arrived more recently they could perhaps have enjoyed a limited menu of pizzas, burgers and ribeye steak, and also a bed in the hotel annexe sensitively wedged behind the listed building in 2003.
The north side of the road, for a few hundred metres at least, is an attractive mix of Tudor and Tudorbethan. Cedar House is fundamentally 16th century and seriously gabled with proper white and black struts. It's named after the towering tree out front which is said to have been planted by a renowned botanist who lived here 300 years ago, and is now office facilities and a clinic. Meanwhile the row of cottages on the brow of the hill was demolished during road widening in 1935 and is now the pleasingly-retro home of The Village chippy and the Manor Launderama. It makes my local den of washing machines look positively ordinary in comparison.
Most of the manorial estates around the village are now housing estates, although one turrety mansion survives as the heart of Bishopshalt, a secondary school in prime premises certain private establishments could only dream of. It's more fruitful to continue down Royal Lane to the site of Hillingdon Grove, itself long replaced by lesser homes but whose Victorian country garden survives as a London Wildlife Trust nature reserve. A slightly muddy trudge through oak woodland leads to a secluded ornamental pool, once some gardener's pride and joy but now colonised by pondweed and a family of ducks. I was particularly taken by the diverse and sometimes raucous birdsong on all sides, far more than you'd normally hear in December, which can't only have come from the magpies I spotted.
Two more mansions survive to the north up Vine Lane, once the rural backway to Ickenham. One's Hillingdon Court which has become an all-through international school posh enough to shuttle its pupils in from Beaconsfield and Notting Hill. You won't see that, it's too well shielded. The other is Hillingdon House, a Georgian pile overlooking the River Pinn which now comprises a luxury banqueting hall and premium serviced offices. Its grounds were requisitioned by the Royal Air Force during WW1 and then during WW2 No 11 Group Fighter Command moved in, hence you can now visit the excellent Battle of Britain Bunker visitor centre for an underground tour. Everyone always thinks that's in Uxbridge, the high street being so close, but being the other side of the river it's technically in historic Hillingdon.
So the Hillingdon everyone knows as a London borough in fact derives its name from a medieval village that's still partly in situ, but only if you know where to look.
