'Map Of The Problematique'

Day 50

 

Kennington - Kensal Green - Kensal Rise

 

Well, the best laid plans, and all that...

 

For various reasons, this morning I'm starting my journey from the third station on my itinerary - since I've had a meeting in north London first thing. I'm therefore parked on a meter near Kensal Rise, a ten minute walk away from Kensal Green (the second stop today), where I can catch a Bakerloo line train south to Kennington (or near enough) - which is the first stop on my list.

 

You know - there really are times when I regret my strict adherence to the alphabetical order I imposed upon myself at the beginning of this venture...

 

***

The regret turns fairly quickly and increasingly into frustration however, as the Bakerloo train grinds to a halt almost as soon as it pulls out of Kensal Green station. The driver doesn't seem to have any information beyond the standard 'being held at a red signal', so all we can do is sit and wait.

 

Eventually, though very slowly, we crawl southwards station by station. At some point the driver of our train is replaced by a different one who seems to have been given a bit more information to pass onto us. It seems there's a signal failure at Baker Street, which is naturally causing severe delays up and down the line.

 

It's already taken me the best part of half an hour to travel a mere half-dozen stations, and the clock (or rather the parking meter) is ticking. I gave myself the maximum 4 hours on the meter, knowing that Kennington has at least one attraction that will occupy me for the best part of an hour, and assuming that doing justice to the other two stations and their environs, together with travelling time, would easily fill the remaining 3 hours.

 

Now though, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to have time to visit one station - let alone three. Having sat on a stationary train for ten minutes at Marylebone, I therefore decide to change my plans and get out and walk to Baker Street - where hopefully the Jubilee Line will be running better than the Bakerloo.

 

As I arrive at Baker Street and descend the escalator, I see a trio of fluorescently-jacketed workmen carrying bundles of cable down into the depths. On the face of it, this doesn't look good, but the words I catch as I pass them - 'yeah, looks like it's all sorted now' - seem promising, so when I get to the platform level and have the choice of turning left and getting the waiting Jubilee train, or turning right and taking the Bakerloo, I choose to resort to my original plan and get back on the Bakerloo line.

 

The Jubilee train pulls away almost immediately, while the Bakerloo train remains unmoving, just long enough for the driver to tell us that the signal failure is still a failure, and that there are still severe delays on the line, before the doors close and it begins to judder away from the platform at a snails pace. And I'm trapped again.

 

It's about this time that I seriously consider giving today up as a bad job and turning around as soon as I get to the next station - whenever that might be.

 

At Regent's Park, however, I realise that I might still be able to get to Kennington in time, if I walk along the Euston Road to Warren Street station and get the Northern Line from there - and so, eventually, that's exactly what I do. And An hour and a half after setting off, I finally emerge from Kennington Station.

 

***

Kennington

At Kennington my original plan was to have been a gentle stroll around the area, taking in the various streets, the White Bear pub theatre, perhaps a wander round Kennington Park, before heading to the attraction I mentioned earlier.

 

Now though, I'm clearly in a bit of a rush, and so head straight down Kennington Park Road, passing both the White Bear and the park with barely a pause, on my way to my ultimate goal - the 'attraction' I mentioned earlier and about which I have, until now, maintained a no doubt irritating air of mystery.

 

The reason for this enigmatic behaviour is simply that - without the afore-going explanation of my various travel woes - my current frantic haste to get to the Beefeater Gin Distillery (for such is the attraction I've been tantalising you with) as quickly as possible, might conceivably have been misconstrued.

 

On the other hand, after the morning I've had, the free gin and tonic on offer as part of the hour-long Distillery Tour is sounding exceedingly tempting. And I still have about two and a half hours before the meter runs out in Kensal Rise - surely that's enough to do the tour, and get back up to north London?

 

Hmmm...

 

Beefeater Distillery

The Beefeater brand has been in circulation since 1876, although the distillery here in Kennington has only been in operation since 1958. A little confusing then to find the date 'Established 1820' emblazoned over the door, and I can't help feeling the manufacturers are being a little cheeky here, since their own website gives the timeline as follows:

 

1820 - a distillery is opened in Chelsea by a certain John Taylor - this has, as yet, nothing whatsoever to do with Beefeater Gin.

 

1835 - The person who would later go on to create the Beefeater brand - James  Burrough - is born. Yes - born - so he'd have been very clever indeed to have established Beefeater Gin fifteen years beforehand.

 

1863 - Burrough purchases the Chelsea distillery from Taylor and begins making various gins, though not, as yet, under the name Beefeater.

 

1876 - Beefeater Gin is first created. 56 years after the date so proudly claimed by the current distillery, and some 80-odd years before they even moved to this part of London.

 

Isn't marketing a wonderful thing...

 

Now, I have to admit to personally being more of a fan of Whisky than of Gin, and in fact only a little while ago, I spent a lovely weekend on the Scottish island of Islay visiting, and being guided round, various distilleries up there.

 

I therefore have both a reasonable knowledge of how distilleries work, and more relevantly, how a Distillery Tour should work. People come here because they want to get 'behind the scenes'. They want to see the various stages of distillation in progress. They want to learn something new. And - let's admit it - they want a free glass of something alcoholic at the end of it.

 

Some spices

The Beefeater tour, sadly, is a bit of a let-down in all but the last of these aspects.

 

The 'tour' starts with a 'self-guided' wander through a rather dull museum of Gin History. The museum has very few physical exhibits, being largely made up of semi-informative signs on the wall: 'This is how Gin started', 'This is how it's made', 'This is what goes into it', 'This is a picture Hogarth drew about it', and so on.

 

A still

Yes, there's a Still (though whether it's real or a model I can't tell) and one or two curiosities, such as the wooden-cat sign through which gin could be illicitly supplied to passing customers, but it takes barely ten minutes to pass through these and the examples of Beefeater advertising which follow.

 

The 'ingenious' though not-very-well-disguised secret Gin dispenser.

After that we (I'm here at the same time as half a dozen German tourists) have to wait for the next, guided, stage of the tour to start at 12pm.

 

A bit of branding

The various labels

I had been mildly surprised to be sold my ticket for the tour at the front desk by an American receptionist.

 

Given the 'Ultra-British' branding and heritage of this particular make of Gin, I had assumed that everyone working here would be British, and probably English, and quite possibly your genuine Cockney, at the very least.

 

I'm even more surprised therefore, when the tour guide turns up and greets us all with an overly-enthusiastic 'Howdy guys, y'all ready for some damn fine gin, darn tootin'?' (well, ok, he didn't say 'darn tootin' - but you get the idea).

 

Not that I have anything especially against Americans - far from it - it just doesn't quite fit with the overall impression the distillery seems to want to create, namely that Gin was, and is, as British as Earl Grey tea, village cricket, Big Ben, Constable's Haywain, and Mary Berry all rolled into one.

 

However, I decide to give the lad a chance, and follow him through to the next stage of the tour - into the distillery itself.

 

Still Life

Except, disappointingly, and very much unlike the whisky distilleries I had visited so recently, we are led not into the heat and steam and mass of pipe-work that is the bowels of a working distillery, but instead into a rather sterile whitewashed room on a level below the still-room, from where we may (if we stand huddled against one wall and crane our necks up at a specific angle) get a glimpse, through a glass section of the ceiling, of the top-half of some stills.

 

Everybody say 'ooohhh!'

 

Our poor American friend does his best, to give him his due, but I'm afraid his attempts at humour and whipping up some enthusiasm for yet more signs on the wall telling us how gin is made, are beaten into submission by the general air of disappointment and the fact that the Germans don't really understand him all that well.

 

The Gin and Tonic was nice though.

 

***

But I haven't really got time to enjoy it as much as I'd like. I down it far more quickly than is probably advisable at this time of day (thus no doubt giving the others the impression that I'm a raging alcoholic) and hurry back to the station.

 

I've seen very little of Kennington, and what I have seen has been a bit of a let-down, but I'm sure the rest of it is very nice - if only I had time to visit it properly.

 

***

Learning from my earlier experiences I give the Bakerloo Line a wide berth and head northwards on the Northern Line all the way to Euston, from where I can get an Overground Train to Kensal Green.

 

I'm going to be cutting it a bit fine now, as I have just over an hour before my meter runs out, but with a bit of luck I should have time to get to Kensal Green, take a photo, walk to Kensal Rise, take another photo, and get back to the car in time to avoid getting a ticket.

 

With a bit of luck.

 

Should have known better really shouldn't I?

 

Not once, in all the time I've been doing this journey, have I had to wait more than about five minutes for a train, be it Underground, Overground, DLR or even Cable Car. So why is it that when I get to Euston and look at the departures board, that the next train to Kensal Green is a TWENTY MINUTE WAIT?!?!?

 

It leaves Euston barely ten minutes before my meter is due to expire, and I know from this morning that it's at least that long a walk between Kensal Green and Kensal Rise. There are also four stations between Euston and Kensal Green - another 8-10 minutes at least. And there's no other route which wouldn't take me at least as long, if not longer.

 

I'm scuppered.

 

All I can do is get from Kensal Green to my car as quickly as possible - not stopping for a photo or any sight-seeing - and hope that the Traffic Wardens are occupied elsewhere for a few more minutes rather than hovering around the parking meter waiting to pounce the second it clicks down to zero. This will of course mean that despite having visited them both twice today, since I have no photographic proof, neither Kensal Green nor Kensal Rise will have been officially visited under the terms of this blog. What a waste of a day!

 

Anyway, after my twenty minute wait - feeling very frustrated - I eventually get the train to Kensal Green. I dash up the stairs from the platform as soon as we arrive, burst through the ticket gate like an avenging fury, walk hurriedly (I'm not built for running) to Kensal Rise, and reach my car 7 minutes after the time on the meter runs out.

 

As I near my car, I slow down - there are no Parking Wardens in sight, but I'm already well past the time I've paid for, so they could have been and gone by now, and I can't yet see the windscreen to see whether there's a little square bundle of joy tucked under the wiper blade...

 

Nothing!

 

I've got away with it! Praise be! I jump in the car and start it up as quickly as I can.

 

I've now got a choice to make. I could just head home, writing the day off as a bit of a disaster, and facing the prospect of another trip up to this neck of the woods next time. Or, I could take my car back to Kensal Green, park for a few seconds (making sure there are no wardens lurking about of course!) and snap a quick photo of the station. I could then drive back to Kensal Rise and do the same there. It will mean that I get my photos at least, although it might be argued that I haven't really explored the surroundings very much. On the other hand, since I've twice walked the various non-descript streets between the two stations, and since my original pre-trip research threw up nothing more interesting than the fact that the main street outside Kensal Rise station was apparently the 'hippest street in Europe' in 2009 (according to Vogue at least), I feel like I've really seen all I want to see of this particular part of town.

 

And so here they both are, in all their glory. Please feel free to visit them yourselves and tell me if I missed anything exciting...

Kensal Green

Kensal Rise

'Me, Myself And I'

Day 49

 

Ickenham - Imperial Wharf - Island Gardens

 

After taking an absolute age to complete the Hs, today I can rather smugly claim to have crossed two letters off in a single day - the Is (of which there are, admittedly, only three) and the Js (of which there are, well... not a single one in fact, which makes life a bit easier...).

 

It's pouring with rain as I set off this morning - as indeed it has been for most of the summer - so any inclination to linger in the various locales I find myself in today will be minimal.

I start off with Ickenham - a station to the west of London, next to Hillingdon on the Piccadilly Line, and very much still a village separate to the capital.

Ickenham

The station sits on its own, away from the main shopping street, although it does have a theatre as its next door neighbour.

The Compass Theatre (unfortunately closed for refurbishment at the moment) was opened in 1968, in the grounds of the former Ickenham Hall - a Grade II listed building. It's mainly used by youth theatre and amateur dramatic groups - which is how I myself got started, so I always have a bit of a soft-spot for this sort of local theatre.

I huddle under my umbrella as I walk to the High Road, where a small collection of shops awaits me, as well as a bit of a local landmark - the Village Pump.

Ickenham Village Pump

This was erected with money left in the will of a local resident and philanthropist, a Mrs Charlotte Gell. The inscription on the inside of the roof reads:

"ERECTED IN THE YEAR 1866
THIS WELL WAS SUNK AND THE PUMP ERECTED
BY THE EXECUTORS OF THE LATE CHARLOTTE GELL
WIDOW WHO DIED ON THE 14^TH OF NOVEMBER 1863
AFTER A LONG RESIDENCE IN THIS PARISH
MRS GELL BY HER WILL DESIRED THAT THIS PUMP
SHOULD BE DEDICATED TO THE USE OF THEINHABITANTS OF THIS VILLAGE FOREVER"

The pump was restored in 2004, having previously not worked since 1914 - although there's no shortage of water with today's torrential downpour, so I grab a quick photo of it and head back to the station and on to my next destination, Imperial Wharf.

***

Despite perhaps sounding like it should be a stop on the DLR, over by Canary Wharf or Canada Water perhaps, Imperial Wharf is actually on the Overground Line, and is west, not east, in Fulham, right next to Chelsea Harbour.

Imperial Wharf

It shouldn't be surprising - after all, The Thames has been a working river for hundreds of years, and it doesn't all grind to a halt at Canary Wharf. Wherever people settled and worked along its banks, harbours and wharfs (wharves?) were bound to spring up.

And when the dock-yard industry declined in the last century, the developers moved in (much like in the Docklands area of East London) and built lots of tall, gleaming, brand new apartment and office blocks, with cafés and restaurants, hotels, gyms, and no personality whatsoever.

Trendy, yes, but lively? Not so much...

As I wander the ghostly quiet streets, I'm left with the distinct impression that, though the apartments are no doubt worth millions, and furnished to the height of luxury - living here would feel like living in an exquisitely interior designed monastery. And probably a Trappist one at that.

Imperial Wharf 'development'

Even at the riverside Marina there's no sign of life. The Blue Elephant Thai restaurant seems deserted, the boats on the river are still, the towering buildings all around me are quiet as the grave.

Marina and Battersea Railway Bridge

I see one or two people in the local coffee shop, near the station, but that's about it.

What is very much in evidence, however, is the word 'Private' - written on roads, buildings, parking spaces... pretty much any surface you can find. That's alright folks, you're welcome to your privacy - seems to me like you've built yourselves a very nice gilded cage to not spread your wings in...

***

And so on to the final stop of the day. (How nice to be able to say that after only visiting two other stations!)

Island Gardens

This one is in Docklands - south of Canary Wharf and the other Isle of Dogs stations. In fact it's the southernmost station on the Isle of Dogs before the DLR dips briefly under the river to re-emerge in Greenwich.

 

The geography round here can get a bit confusing to say the least. For example - the station known as Island Gardens is next to a park, but this is not the 'Gardens' of the station name. That lies further south, right next to the river. The park next to the station is actually Millwall Park.

 

However, Millwall Park is not in Millwall, which lies next door, further west, on the other side of the East Ferry Road.

 

The area to the east of the East Ferry Road is known as Cubitt Town, after William Cubitt, a former Lord Mayor Of London.

 

And both areas are in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

 

Millwall, of course, is also the name of the football club (with its notoriously violent supporters) which was founded here in 1885, but which is now based about 2.5km west of here in South Bermondsey.

 

All clear? Jolly good...

 

The little patch of greenery which is actually known as Island Gardens, sits, as I have said, at the very southern tip of the Isle Of dogs and looks across the river towards Greenwich and the splendour of the Old Royal Naval College - a view which has hardly changed since Canaletto painted it over 250 years ago.

 

A View Of Greenwich...

 

 

Entrance to
Greenwich Foot Tunnel

The park also contains the distinctive domed northern entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel (the southern domed entrance can be seen across the river near the Cutty Sark). Constructed in 1902 to replace the ferry service, it's a cast iron tunnel, 1215 feet long and 50 feet deep.

 

 

 

A similar foot tunnel further east links Woolwich and North Woolwich near City Airport, and both tunnels owe their existence to Will Crooks, an MP from a working class background who campaigned for the tunnels as a means of enabling workers from south of the river to get to their jobs in the docks north of the Thames.

 

Cutty Sark, and Southern Entrance to the Tunnel

I walk eastwards out of the gardens, following the Thames Path along the riverside, until I reach a particular road which, despite the fact that I knew it was here, having discovered it during my pre-womble research, I am nevertheless childishly pleased to find, as it bears my own surname.

 

My spiritual home?

Sadly, there's really nothing whatsoever distinguished about the road - it's just a collection of anonymous, fairly modern, terraced housing. I hadn't expected grand mansions or historically significant architecture - but this really could be any suburban housing estate anywhere.

 

Ah well, it does at least seem appropriate that I should finished the day - and more importantly the letter 'I' - on such a clearly egotistical note...

'Hallelujah'

Day 48

 

Hounslow Central - Hounslow East - Hounslow West - Hoxton - Hyde Park Corner

 

At last! The day when I finally say goodbye to the Hs! I can't say I'll be sorry to leave this letter behind, but all being well, it will at least end rather pleasantly, with an afternoon in one of London's nicest parks - Hyde Park. But first - a somewhat less salubrious beginning...

***
Given their proximity to one another (and the fact that most of Hounslow's 'interesting' bits are collected together in the town centre), I kick off today by shuttling back and forth along the Piccadilly Line in order to visit the three Hounslow stations in quick succession - taking my photograph of each in turn - before returning to Hounslow Central for a more thorough look round the centre.

Hounslow Central

While Hounslow Central is your fairly bog-standard affair, the other two stations do at least make up for the lack of anything remotely interesting in their vicinity by being a little bit out of the ordinary themselves.

Hounslow East is very futuristic looking - not surprising given that the new station buildings were completed as recently as 2003, although there's been a station here for over a hundred years.

Hounslow East

Hounslow West isn't as new, but shares a quirky characteristic with Ealing Common station (which I visited a while ago), which you may be able to guess at from the picture below.

Hounslow West

The designers (our old friend Charles Holden, and an occasional collaborator of his, Stanley Heaps) made the ticket halls at both these stations Heptagonal - 7-sided - and they seem to be the only two stations on the system to have this unusual design. There are squares, circles and octagons aplenty - but only two heptagons...

But on to Hounslow's town centre.

An interesting (and only slightly made up) fact about Hounslow is that there are more kebab shops, pawnbrokers and Pound Shops per capita than in any other London Borough.

Or at least, it seems that way.

They also seem to require more than their fare share of Spinal Injury clinics, and I find myself not wanting to linger too long in case I slip a disc or develop lumbago.

The name "Hounslow" means "The Mound of a man called Hund" - although an alternative and equally possible interpretation is "The Dog's Mound" - which conjures up an altogether earthier image, and one which seems less than complimentary to the place.

But then, there isn't all that much to be complimentary about. To the south of Hounslow Central station is the town centre, largely taken up by the Treaty Centre - a shopping mall that also houses the Paul Robeson Theatre.

The shopping centre is fairly typical - although again, pawnbrokers and pound shops abound - and despite the theatre sharing its name with one of the great African-American actors and Civil Rights advocates, the link is tenuous to say the least. Paul Robeson did live in London for a time, and he filmed Sanders Of The River (a movie in which he played an 'educated' African chief) in nearby Isleworth Studios. However, he later claimed to 'hate the picture', as he'd taken on the role on the understanding that it would show native Africans in a positive light. When he saw the final edit of the film, and realised that the emphasis was on how noble the White Man was, struggling against these savage natives, he sought to distance himself from it, and even tried to buy up all copies to prevent it being shown.

Hardly the basis for a fond connection with Hounslow...

I've picked up a leaflet from the station called 'Out & About Hounslow', and while stopping for a coffee in the shopping centre, I flick through it.

Because Hounslow is a borough as well as a town, stretching from Heathrow Airport all the way east to include Chiswick, the promoters who wrote the leaflet have been able to lay claim to various attractions which visitors to Hounslow Central will be hard put to find. Michelin Starred Restaurants, Gastropubs, Country Houses, Riverside Breweries... even (though rather cheekily since it actually sits just outside the borough boundaries) the home of English Rugby - Twickenham stadium.

On the other hand, the leaflet does inform me that Henry VIII's coffin was kept overnight at nearby Syon Park house on its final journey to Windsor, and that the decaying corpse burst open during the night, taking the coffin with it, and the corpulent Monarch's entrails spilled out and were eaten by stray dogs. I don't remember that from my history lessons at school!

***
My next stop - and the penultimate H station - is Hoxton.

Hoxton

Given my disappointment with Homerton last week, I'm a little dubious about the potential attractions of another part of the Borough of Hackney - but Hoxton gives me one or two pleasant surprises as I wander around the area immediately surrounding the station.

The first of these is the rather idiosyncratic naming of some of the shops.

"You Look Nice" (assuming this is the name of the shop, and not just a message to casual passers-by) is harmless and charming enough.

Why thank you...

On the other hand, "Lie Down I Think I Love You" has, I think you'll agree, just an edge of wrongness to it (shades of Rohypnol...?)



Lie down I think I love you... Hmm, thanks but no thanks...

It's an odd-ish place altogether - a shop selling leather handbags combined with a café in the front window - but where the name comes from, I have no idea.

Next I come across a familiar name to those of us in the acting profession.

Graeae Theatre Company

Graeae Theatre Company was founded in 1980 to produce theatre which placed disabled artists firmly into the spotlight, in order to dispel the myths and prejudices surrounding disabled people. (The three Graeae sisters in Greek mythology shared a single tooth and a single eye.) They've since gone from strength to strength and are now internationally respected as a theatrical company.

And finally, a little further along the street, I come to the The Geffrye Museum Of The Home.

Former alms-houses have been converted into a series of 'Period Rooms' - reconstructions of domestic living spaces from various periods in history, ranging from the 1600s to the present day. Here are just a few of them:

Hall, 1630

Drawing Room, 1870

Drawing Room, 1910

I enjoy the museum, although it doesn't take very long to get round it and after no more than half an hour, I'm heading back to the station.

***
And so, finally, on to the real 'biggie' of today's stations. There's certainly no shortage of interest and attraction, history and curiosity, about Hyde Park Corner. Not only is it a major junction (Park Lane, Piccadilly, Constitution Hill, Knightsbridge and Grosvenor Place all converge here), it's also the location of the house with the shortest address in the Capital: "Number One, London". It's got monuments and statues all over it, it's been used as a code-word to announce the death of a King, and of course it's got one of London's biggest parks next to it.



Hyde Park Corner

Old Station - Now the
Wellesley Hotel

The modern-day station is entirely underground - ticket hall included - which is unusual on the Underground system. However, this wasn't always the case, and the familiar ox-blood red tiles of the original station can still be seen as they now form the frontage of the nearby Wellesley Hotel.

Wellesley was the surname of Arthur, Duke Of Wellington - the first to bear that title, and probably the most famous of those to do so.

It was this Duke Of Wellington who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, had two stints as Prime Minister, was the subject of a Beethoven Symphony, was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army and Constable of the Tower Of London, helped found King's College London, was chief Ranger and Keeper of Hyde Park and St James's Park, and gave his name to both a dish of beef wrapped in pastry, and a type of rubber boot.

With all of that going on, perhaps it's understandable that he couldn't be bothered to live in a house with a complicated address - and it's his residence, Apsley House, which is known as 'Number One, London' (actually a hang-over from when this was the first house seen by travellers entering London via the Knightsbridge Toll Gates).

Number One London. Apsley House - Duke Of Wellington's residence.



Wellington Equestrian
Statue

Wellington Arch

In the centre of the Hyde Park Corner junction is a large traffic island and this too has monuments dedicated to Wellington, as well as a few others.

As well as an equestrian statue made from bronze obtained from captured French cannon, Wellington is commemorated by the Wellington Arch - designed to be a ceremonial entrance to Constitution Hill, and originally topped with another statue of Wellington. However, both the arch, and the statue that stood atop it were later relocated (though not to the same place!). The statue was felt to be too big for the arch, and was moved to Aldershot, home of the British army, while the arch was moved just a few hundred feet away from the end of Constitution Hill, to allow the road to be widened. It still stands in the same orientation to the hill however.

Other monuments on the traffic island are also military in subject matter, including The Royal Artillery memorial - dedicated to those who died in the First World War - and the New Zealand War Memorial to those lost in both wars.



Royal Artillery Memorial

New Zealand War Memorial

I head next into the park that gives this 'corner' its name.

Originally created in 1536 as a hunting park for Henry VIII, it was also the site for the original Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition in 1851.

This was relocated to the area now called Crystal Palace in 1854 - and as with the various other statues, monuments, arches, and even tube stations I've encountered on this journey which it has been deemed necessary to move, I can't help feeling that a little forethought might have saved everybody a lot of time, trouble and expense.

There is of course a lot to see in the park - more monuments, huge open spaces, art galleries, boating lakes and even a bandstand. I had even contemplated giving Hyde Park Corner a day to itself - knowing that I could easily spend several hours seeing everything the park has to offer.

But for various reasons (not least the fact that I want to be shot of these Hs once and for all!) I've decided that I can't tell you about everything - and in fact I don't think I should. This is one place you really have to see for yourself, assuming you haven't already (which really would be surprising if you've lived in London for any reasonable length of time - and even if you've only visited, it's surely one of the main attractions.)

So, once in the park, I make my way generally westwards, in the direction of the Serpentine - the stretch of water which effectively marks the centre of the park and which is the focal point of most visits.

Along the way I pass one of the curiosities of the park - a tree that goes variously by the name Fagus Sylvatica Pendula, the Weeping Beech, or - more commonly here at least - the 'upside down tree'.

The Upside Down Tree

It's branches do seem to be growing the wrong way, and unlike other 'hanging' trees like the Weeping Willow, there seems to be more intent in the way these branches plunge toward the ground.

At the Serpentine I stop for a bite to eat in the café and watch the people boating on the lake and strolling along its banks, as they have done here for nearly 300 years (the park has been open to the public since 1637 but the Serpentine - an artificial lake created by the damming of the old River Westbourne - was ordered by Queen Caroline, wife of George II as part of her redevelopment of the park in 1730).

The Serpentine

After my lunch I head eastwards again, this time to a rather more recent memorial, which sadly shows that the human race still hasn't learnt its lessons from the various wars and atrocities it has inflicted upon itself over the centuries.

This memorial is dedicated to the 52 people who died in the 7th July 2005 terrorist bombings in London.

7 July Memorial



Close-up of the memorial

It's a simple memorial, and all the more poignant for that. Let the Wellingtons of this world have their pomp and circumstance - give me a monument that people can touch, walk round, get close to...

The columns (or stelae) bear no names, but are grouped in four clusters to represent the four locations where bombs killed passengers on three tube trains and a bus.

The names of those who died.

Like many Londoners I remember the day well. It was the day after London had been awarded the 2012 Olympic Games, I was in my second year of drama school, and I would normally have been travelling there by tube (though thankfully nowhere near the attacks) but was turned away from an unexpectedly closed Ealing Broadway station, 'due to an incident on the Undergound'.

Eventually sitting on a packed bus, which was of course full of very disgruntled passengers, all wondering what the hell was wrong with the tubes, again... I only heard about the bombings when my wife finally managed to get through to me on my mobile phone (the networks having been shut down as a security measure) an hour or so later.

But - again, like many Londoners - I remember thinking at the time, and many times since, how little the bombers knew about Londoners if they expected us all to cower at home and never venture onto the tubes and buses again. The following day we all did what we'd always done and just, well... got on with it; although I suspect I'm not the only one (and I freely admit to being ashamed at myself for doing so) who, for a while after the attacks, cast a few surreptitious glances at anyone vaguely Muslim-looking, if they were carrying a rucksack or hold-all.

***
Almost the polar opposite of the way terrorist's try and force their 'message' (such as it is) down people's throats, is to be found at the north-eastern corner of Hyde Park, where for decades all those with an opinion to share can (quite literally) get up on their soap-box and speak to anyone willing to listen: it is of course, Speaker's Corner.

I'm disappointed that no-one is exercising their democratic right to Free Speech as I visit the corner today. In fact, the only exercising going on is some enthusiastic stretching and wiggling being performed by a muscular black man, topless and clearly revelling in showing off his rippling muscles.

Speaker's Corner - where it isn't just provocative opinion that gets attention

Speaker's Corner has very much become a symbol of 'Free Speech' - and more particularly, representative of the idea that just because what is said might be offensive, contentious, heretical or unwelcome (provided it doesn't incite violence), there is absolutely no reason it may not be said.

Nobody has to stop and listen. Anybody can disagree or heckle. As long as neither side gets violent, then the only way to stop the other person speaking is to convince them of the validity of your own argument.

In a 1999 High Court Appeal ruling Lord Justice Sedley referred to Speaker's Corner, and summed its importance up in the following way:

"Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having. What Speaker's Corner (where the law applies as fully as anywhere else) demonstrates, is the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear."

I wonder what the terrorists would make of that last bit...

***
And that, best beloved, is the end of the Hs.

Hallelujah!... Gott sei Dank!... Laudate Dominum!... Subhan'allah!...

Or whatever you prefer - it's a free country after all...

'Wild Wood'

Day 47

 

Holland Park - Holloway Road - Homerton - Honor Oak Park - Hornchurch

 

A lot to fit in (hopefully) today, but for once the alphabet and the tube map are in relative harmony, and the route will be a fairly straightforward one, rather than the usual random zig-zagging across the Capital.

 

Nevertheless, it'll be a long day if I manage to fit all five of my planned stations in, and I set off a little earlier than usual on the very easy first leg of the journey - Ealing Broadway to Holland Park - straight through on the Central Line.

 

Holland Park

Holland Park station, the road called Holland Park opposite it, and indeed the area surrounding both, are all of course named after the nearby park, which was once the grounds of Holland House - home to the various members of the Holland Baronetcy until it was largely destroyed during the Blitz. The park is really the major point of interest in this very affluent area (properties round here are ridiculously priced. At the time of writing there are apartments for sale - admittedly with 5 or more bedrooms - for £26 million.)

 

There are a smattering of cafés outside the station, and Holland Park Avenue, on which it stands, is a busy stretch of road leading from Shepherd's Bush in the west towards Notting Hill in the east.

 

***

 

St Volodymyr

Across the road from the station, outside the Ukrainian Institute on the corner of the road called Holland Park, is a statue of Saint Volodymyr (a variation of the name Vladimir) - patron saint and former ruler of Ukraine - who introduced Christianity to the country in 988AD.

 

A Ukrainian flag and a few flowers sit perched on the edge of the statue, looking rather lonely, but a year or so ago during the height of the fighting in Ukraine the statue was a blaze of colour, being surrounded by floral tributes. Behind it had been erected a wall of photos of those who had lost their lives in the fighting - turning the statue into a shrine of remembrance.

 

***

 

But it's to the park I make my way very soon after arriving, and what a pleasant park it is!

 

'Tonda' by Jonathan Loxley

Tree Sculpture

Unlike many of London's larger parks, this one doesn't have huge expanses of grassy open spaces.

 

Instead it's mainly woodland, and other than the occasional sculptures dotted around the meandering shaded pathways (and the fact that these are well maintained and fenced off from the trees) you might imagine yourself to be in some rural wilderness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lord Holland

Along one of these pathways I discover a small pond, within which stands a statue of Lord Holland - 3rd Baron Holland. Other than being a member of the Whig Party, and Lord Privy Seal between 1806 and 1807, I can't seem to find much to distinguish him. Fair enough, his family built the house that used to stand here, but that was 200 years previously.

 

Towards the centre of the park are the remains of the house itself. These days the house is used as the backdrop for 'Opera Holland Park' - whose productions take place over the summer, allowing audience members to picnic in the park before enjoying some of the less well known works of opera.

 

Opera Holland Park

Near the house there are more formal gardens too - firstly a rather traditional garden with statues and a burst of colour from the multitude of sunflowers proliferating in its beds...

 

Sunflowers

Secondly, a more peaceful Japanese style garden called the Kyoto Garden...

 

Kyoto Garden

Originally built to commemorate the Japan Festival in 1991, it contains a waterfall, a large pond full of koi carp, and traditional Japanese garden ornamentation.

 

Koi carp

Waterfall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garden Ornament - Japanese style

There are notices giving the history of garden, and - surrounding the pond - several more requesting visitors to the garden not to feed the fish.

 

History Of The Original Garden

This being Holland Park, however, where the residents are all terribly wealthy and important, and everyone drives Mercedes cars, and have big houses, and firmly believe that 'the rules don't apply to me' - these signs are completely ignored by the various parents happily encouraging their offspring to shower the pond with bread and seeds.

 

***

Now, you may have noticed, on occasion, that I can be less than complimentary toward areas I perceive as 'affluent' and you may feel that I make assumptions about the sort of people who live there.

 

While I admit that not everyone in, say, Kensington or Chelsea or Mayfair is an arrogant selfish arse - I think the above example serves to confirm my view, and I stand by my opinion that many, if not most of the residents of these locales, are exactly that.

 

***

Next to the original Kyoto Garden is a later addition - a memorial garden to the Fukishima nuclear disaster in 2011.

Fukushima Garden - Message from the Emperor of Japan

 

The garden is intended to be, and for the most part succeeds in being, a place of quiet contemplation, and I enjoy the ten minutes or so I spend wandering around it, before I head off to my next destination.

Bonsai

 

***

Next up is Holloway Road.

 

Holloway Road

This station sits roughly halfway along the road of the same name - itself being only a smaller part of the much longer A1 road. The stretch called Holloway Road heads North West from Highbury & Islington tube station at the end of Upper Street, to Archway tube station in Upper Holloway. It thus connects two stations I've visited before and gives me a momentary feeling of being one-step closer to my goal - in the 'join the dots' puzzle that is this journey, it's as if I've just completed the shape of an eye-ball. There's still a long way to go before the rest of the animal is revealed, but at least there's the beginnings of something there.

The tube station, as well as bearing the familiar red tiles of a Leslie Green designed station, is noted as being the site of an experimental (and alas unsuccessful) spiral escalator, which was housed in one of the original two lift shafts (only one of which was ever used by the public).

The spiral escalator was the brainchild of an American inventor called Jesse W. Reno - who built the first ever working escalator as (would you believe it) an attraction at the Coney Island amusement park in 1896. There the thrill-seekers would be raised 7 feet off the ground by Reno's 'Inclined Elevator' and he went on to build escalators for many American subway stations.

Why his spiral escalator failed to get off the ground (sorry...) I have no idea - but a photograph of it installed in the lift shaft at Holloway Road can be found at the London Transport Museum website.

The street outside the station is a mixture of shops large and small, and university buildings belonging to the London Metropolitan University.

Among these is the eye-catching Orion Building, designed by Polish-American architect, Daniel Libeskind. whose designs can be seen across the Globe, not least in New York - where he was the architect chosen to design the buildings that would stand at the site of the former World Trade Centre.


Orion Building

His 'One World Trade Centre' opened in November last year. It's now the tallest building in the western hemisphere and shares the distinctive angled walls that can be seen here in Holloway.

I follow the road south towards Highbury & Islington station, since I'll be getting the Overground train from there to my next destination - Homerton.

The shops I pass are an eclectic mix - but what stands out are the two (at least) shops selling nothing but so-called 'e-cigarettes'. I knew they'd become popular, but I had no idea there was sufficient demand to justify entire shops devoted to selling nothing else. Or maybe it's just the large number of students who are buying them...

***
I get the Overground to Homerton and the huge wealth of Holland Park and (to a lesser degree) Islington is left behind as I enter the run-down inner-city grubbiness that is characteristic of this part of town.

Homerton

Hackney, as a borough, may - as the estate agents keep trying to persuade us - be 'up-and-coming', but the part of it within a fifteen minute walk of Homerton Station is still very much 'down-and-can't-be-bothered-to-be-honest'.

The funny thing is that I should have a soft spot for this area, as the rehearsals for the first ever professional play I was cast in took place just up the road from the station, in the Chat's Palace Arts Centre.

The Arts Centre (though this seems a rather grandiose title for the mish-mash of dimly lit rehearsal rooms contained within the former Homerton Library) is still there, and gets its name from Chatsworth Road. Quite why it should get its name from this road is unclear however, as the centre actually stands on Brooksby's Walk, some five minutes away from Chatsworth Road and has, as far as I can see, no connection with it whatsoever.

To the east of the station, on Homerton Road, is the site of the former Lesney Die Cast Model factory, which made Matchbox toy cars. Sadly, the factory is no longer there, having been demolished in 2010 to make way for apartment blocks.

I make a brief circuit of the streets around the station, but I'm afraid this is another one of those fleeting 10-minute visits which occasionally litter this journey, much like the plastic take-away cartons which litter the streets of Homerton, and before long I'm back on the Overground train - this time heading south, towards Honor Oak Park.

***
Honor Oak Park station sits on a road called Honor Oak Park, in an area called Honor Oak, and seems therefore to have shared the same imaginative town planning as Holland Park.
Strangely, the one thing lacking is an actual park called Honor Oak Park. There's an Honor Oak Sports Ground, a Brenchley Gardens, a Camberwell Old Cemetry and a Camberwell New Cemetery and (something we'll come back to shortly) a blatantly mis-named 'One Tree Hill', where the original oak tree from which Honor Oak gets its name once stood. But not a sniff of an Honor Oak Park!
I attempt to get a photo of the station, but for reasons best known to themselves, the town planners have put a blooming great central divide in the road, with five foot high walls on either side, which means I can only get a photo of the top half of the station.



Honor Oak Park
(Or at least - the top half of it...)

My frustration continues as I decide it's about time for some lunch, and I head east from the station towards some shops, in search of a place to eat that isn't either a fast-food outlet or a greasy-spoon café - but fail to find any alternatives other than the local branch of Sainsbury's. I make do with a sandwich and a can of coke from there and sit on a bench in the playing fields of the Sports Ground for fifteen minutes while I eat.

Fortified by my lunch I make the steep climb up the aforementioned 'One Tree Hill'.

One Tree Hill
(Erm... I beg to differ...)

I should point out that if you do a search for 'One Tree Hill' in London on Google Maps, there's a good chance you won't end up in the right place. There are two listed in London and the first one to come up on your search will probably be the one in Greenwich Park, by the Observatory, on which stands a tree called Queen Elizabeth's Oak. It is said that Elizabeth I used to picnic under the shade of the huge oak, that was already 400 years old when she sat beneath its branches...

Clicking on the second 'One Tree Hill' to pop up, you'll no doubt think there's been some mistake, as the centre of the map appears to be the dull grey of buildings rather than the bright green of tree-topped hills.

Having been there, I can confirm that the area has not just one but hundreds of trees, so is by no means devoid of greenery, and the map-makers at Google must have just been having an off day...

At the top of this second One Tree Hill there used to stand an oak tree, and it is said that Elizabeth I used to picnic under the shade of the huge oak...

You get the idea.

Our Betty seems to have got about a bit, doesn't she...

Like all such claims, it needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt, but this didn't stop the local councillors planting a new oak tree in 1905, to replace the one that had stood here previously and which in turn had been a replacement of the original. The original was called the 'Oak Of Honor', giving the area its name, although the title referred to the 'Honour Of Gloucester' (or Feudal Barony of Gloucester - a medieval form of land tenure) of which the tree marked the southern boundary.

The Oak Of Honor (Mark II)



This Oak Tree...

Unfortunately there are railings around the trunk of the tree now, and a footpath running under the branches - so picnicking here wouldn't be very comfortable these days.

***
And so to my final stop of the day - Hornchurch.

Hornchurch

Hornchurch is very nearly as far east as you can go on the District Line, and I set off with some trepidation since (as my regular readers will know) I've been fairly disappointed with much of this stretch of the underground.

Between Barking and Elm Park there seems to be a band of places with very little to recommend them. However, as I reach the town centre (a ten minute walk north of the station - which, at the end of a long day's hiking up and down some of the hillier parts of London is no joke, believe me!) I'm pleasantly surprised.

While there's nothing especially beautiful, exciting or memorable about Hornchurch town centre, it does at least look clean and well-kept and the shops and cafés are welcoming and friendly.

Hornchurch was historically part of Essex, before the borders between Essex and Greater London were changed in the 1960s, and now forms one of the towns in the London Borough of Havering (which sounds like somewhere Douglas Adams and John Lloyd would find a space for in their 'Meaning Of Liff' books...)

The name Hornchurch originally referred to a 13th Century 'church with horn-like gables' though that church has long gone. There is a church to the east of the town centre with a horned bull's head stuck on the outside - but this dates from the 18th Century.

It's been a long day, so I spend most of my time in Hornchurch enjoying a relaxing cup of coffee and watching the world go by as my feet take a breather. My strength somewhat restored I head back to the station, and take the long ride on the District Line back to Ealing, and home.