'Sorted for Es And Wizz'

Day 34

 

Epping - Euston - Euston Square

 

When I started this blog (which seems a very long time ago now) I decided - on a whim - to give each post a title which was the name of a well-known (or reasonably so at least) song. So far this has stood me in fairly good stead, with only the occasional stretch of the imagination required to spot the connection with the blog's content.

 

Today, however, the song I have in my head (which is not, as you will see, the song I have chosen for the title of the post) as I walk to the station is 'California Dreamin' - the connection being with the lyrics, rather than the title:

 

"All the leaves are brown,

and the sky is grey..."

 

It's a typically wet and miserable British Autumn day - and not one, you might imagine, any sane person would choose to go and visit one of the largest forests in England. (But then again, would any sane person be doing what I'm doing?)

 

It is, however, the day I will tick off another letter of the alphabet, and complete the 'E's - hence the title of today's post.

 

***

It's an hour and fifteen minutes on the Central Line to get here from Ealing, and it's the furthest east I can go on this line since the closure of the Epping to Ongar section back in the 1990s. I'm old enough to remember that section - and indeed I used it on at least one occasion to visit a friend who used to live out that way - so it's always a little sad to think that it's now just a part of Tubular history.

 

Epping

Despite being on the same line, there's no direct train from Ealing Broadway to Epping unless I travel at rush hour (which I wish to avoid at all costs) so I have to change at Leytonstone. It will be the same story later when I head back into town - all the off-peak trains terminate at West Ruislip rather than Ealing Broadway. This won't matter to me today as I'll be getting off in the centre of town to visit Euston, but does leave me feeling just a little like a victim of Transport Prejudice.

 

Perhaps the reason the other branch gets such preferential treatment is that the journey from Epping to West Ruislip is currently the longest journey you can make on the Underground without changing trains. It's a distance of 34.1 miles, which, thanks to the fact that both stations are on the tube map, and are therefore generally considered (if they are considered at all) as just 'different parts of London', doesn't sound that much. But it's only marginally less than the distance between Sheffield and Manchester - and they've got a whole mountain range between them.

 

***

It's a fairly steep walk uphill from the station to the town-centre, but very much worth the effort. Epping is a market town, and in many ways reminds me of the similar 'end of the line' towns such as Amersham and Chesham - the opposite side of London. There are the usual Starbucks and Costa coffee shops, an M&S and a WH Smith, but also enough independent shops and upmarket looking restaurants to give the place an individual charm.

 

Epping High Street

Epping was Winston Churchill's constituency between 1924 and 1945, although there's nothing obvious by way of a memorial to him along the High Street. I had expected a statue at the very least - but as far as I can tell there's nothing. Perhaps he was so busy being inspirational in parliament that his local constituents felt rather forgotten-about...

 

In need of some refreshment, I pop into the nearest coffee shop, which happens to be a Caffé Nero.

 

I can tell I'm out in the sticks, when the female barista greets me. In more central establishments the staff (presumably in an attempt at 'authenticity' by the owners) tend to be predominantly Italian speaking (or at least Italian sounding).

 

Not so here in Epping, where perhaps the staff have reverted to the original meaning of the Italian word 'barista', which is: 'Barmaid' (or of course 'barman'). The tattooed and bleach-blonde haired woman behind the counter gives me a cheery "Awrigh' my darlin' how's you - awrigh'? Wot can I do you for?"

 

I plump for a 'grandy lartay', and am then mildly bemused by the subsequent enquiry regarding my choice of accompanying sugary treat.

 

The two people in the queue before me have each been asked (in a way that seems to me to be peculiarly over-specific) whether, as well as their coffee, they would like a Blueberry Muffin. Not: 'Anything to eat?' or even: 'One of our Muffins with that?', but solely and specifically, a Blueberry Muffin.

 

I can only assume that there's been a cock-up somewhere in the weekly ordering process and that they've got a store-room full of these things they need to shift quickly.

 

So, I'm completely thrown by the fact that when it comes to my turn she suddenly changes tack and asks me if I'd like a pain au raisin (or rather a 'pan uh rayzin').

 

What's wrong with the muffins all of a sudden? Have they sold the last one? Or has the barista spotted my naturally cosmopolitan sophistication and decided that such common-or-garden delights as the Blueberry Muffin are beneath me?

 

It's all very odd. In actual fact I choose a Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffin, just to spite her, and very nice it is too.

 

***

On the High Street there's a butcher called Church's (established 1888) which apparently sells the well-known (?) Epping Sausages.

Home of the Epping Sausage

 

These are skinless pork and beef sausages with sage lemon and nutmeg and have been made in Epping since the late 19th Century. Or so the locals would have you believe...

 

There is a story, however, that tells of the 'Great Epping Sausage Scandal', in which a curious man who wanted to see the factory where the famous sausages were made, came out to Epping but was greeted with puzzlement by the locals, who seemed to know nothing of any such manufacture. He decided to find out the truth and so lay in wait for the butcher's wagon as it left Epping, following it back towards town. He managed to get a glimpse in the back of the wagon, which appeared singularly bereft of sausages. Before long, however, it apparently stopped at an inn, where another wagon - having come out from Smithfields market, laden with so-called 'genuine Epping sausages' - was waiting to meet it. There followed a hurried transfer of sausagemeat from the Smithfield wagon to the Epping one, which then continued into town with its counterfeit cargo.

 

Who would have thought a sausage could be so controversial...

 

***

As I mentioned at the beginning of today's post, Epping is also the location of a very large forest. Over 6000 acres of trees make up Epping Forest and it was not surprisingly known as the 'lungs of London'.

Before setting off this morning I've had a look on their website to see what might be going on today, and was greeted with the following gem:

Am I the only person for whom the words 'No dogs please' seem to leap out and smack you between the eyes...?

 

Anyway, I make a (very) brief foray into the outskirts of the forest, but today is really not the day to visit. The ground underfoot is such a squelching morass of mud and soggy leaves that it soon becomes ground around foot, and if I'm not careful will be ground over foot. And I've somehow neglected to bring my waders...

 

***

And so it's on to the final two Es.

 

By the time I emerge from Euston station (the Underground station is of course attached to the Network Rail station), the heavens have opened and a persistent drizzle is falling.

Euston Station

 



Robert Stephenson

I grab a hurried photo of the station entrance and the statue of Robert Stephenson that stands in front of it.

 

Robert Stephenson was the son of George Stephenson (known as the 'father of the railways' although perhaps the most famous early locomotive - the 'Rocket' - was actually Robert's design). Both father and son were heavily involved in the development and evolution of steam locomotives (there had been several locomotives before 'Rocket' came along) and the railways in general.

 

Working with his father, Robert was instrumental in establishing the London to Birmingham railway, which runs from Euston to this day (albeit under the new name of London Midland).

 

With the weather so bad, I'm not disposed to linger outside Euston for very long so I dash to the nearest coffee shop for some lunch.

 

Like all railway stations - and indeed all airports - Euston has that strange mixed atmosphere of excited anticipation and grim depression. Everyone here is either about to head off somewhere or has just arrived from somewhere and (certainly at this time of day when the rush hour is long over) at least some of these journeys are being taken for pleasure rather than work. People are being met by their loved ones, parents are visiting their offspring, students are returning to their family homes to get their washing done... The place is alive with journeys ending and just beginning.

 

It's just a pity it all has to take place in the artificially lit glare of Burger King and Millie's Cookies...

 

***

Around the corner from Euston is Euston Square, and it's far quicker to walk the few hundred yards to this station than to take the tube, which would necessitate a journey of about 20 minutes via King's Cross.

Euston Square Station

 

Originally known as Gower Street, this station was one of the original seven stations on the very first tube line - the Metropolitan Railway - which opened in 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon. The name was changed to Euston Square in 1909 and the new entrance on the south side of Euston Road was opened in 2006.

 

I continue south of Euston Square along Gower Street (home of RADA, probably the most famous of all drama schools) and then turn eastwards along Torrington Place towards to other Squares (it's all squares around here) Gordon and Tavistock.

 

Home of The Bloomsbury Group

This area is known as Bloomsbury, and in Gordon Square there's a plaque on a building commemorating the 'Bloomsbury Group' - a group of writers, including Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and EM Forster - who formed an 'intellectual aristocracy'.

 

 

 



The Bloomsbury Group plaque



They supported and promoted each other's work, and influenced both literature and society with their opinions on ethics and politics.

 

 



 

 

 

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Virginia Woolf is also celebrated in the Square next door - Tavistock Square. A rather zombiefied looking bust of her sits in the south-west corner.

 

 

 

 

 

At the centre of the gardens is a memorial to a person once described by the Member Of Parliament for Epping (a certain Winston Churchill) as 'a seditious Middle Temple Lawyer, now posing as a fakir... striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-Regal palace'. The lawyer in question was a Mr Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi - or Mahatma, to both his followers at the time, and the rest of the world since.

 

Gandhi - "Generations to come
will scarce believe that such
a one as this walked the earth
in flesh and blood"

Gandhi, was of course an exemplar of the concept of non-violent protest - and more importantly, what it can achieve. Ironic then perhaps that in this same square, on July 7th 2005, just a few hundred feet away, one of four suicide bombings to hit the capital that day took place - killing 13 people. We really have learned nothing, have we?

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

I make my way back towards Euston Station, pausing briefly by St Pancras Church - built in 1819 - to take a photo of what must be one of the greatest architectural cock-ups in history.

 

Both front and back of the church are a set of 'caryatids' (female figures acting as architectural supports in the place of columns). The figures here were sculpted by one Charles Rossi (1762-1839) and modelled on the Erechtheum in the Acropolis in Athens.

Aren't you a little short for a caryatid?

 

The only trouble was, that after Mr Rossi had completed his work on the caryatids in his workshop - diligently building them up in sections around a cast-iron framework over a period of about three years - and had finally transported them to the church, he realised with what must have been a bowel-crunching sense of horror, that he'd made them several inches too tall.

 

I can imagine the feigned nonchalance with which he then proceeded (in front of a crowd of onlookers, no-doubt not fooled for one second) to cut out a section of the torso of each figure, leaving a 'scar' that is only partially disguised by the flowing Grecian outfits he'd luckily seen fit to clothe them in.

 

Numpty.

 

Ah well - a fittingly light note on which to end the 'E' section I feel...