'Alphabet St.'

Day 42

Hampstead - Hampstead Heath - Hanger Lane - Harlesden - Harringay Green Lanes

We're going decidedly upmarket with our first two stations of the day, and they're also within a stone's throw of each other, which makes a nice change.

On the other hand, I wouldn't actually throw any stones around this part of town if I were you, as the cost of replacing any damaged windows - most of which bedeck the fronts of properties which, if not actually listed, are definitely 'period' and in a protected Conservation Area - would be extortionate.

Hampstead Station sits on the crossroads formed by Holly Hill (to the north), Heath Street (to the east and west) and Hampstead High Street (to the south).



Hampstead



Hampstead High Street is actually the top end of Rosslyn Hill, which in turn becomes Haverstock Hill further south, so you would be correct in surmising that Hampstead is just as elevated geographically speaking, as it is in terms of average income, social status and property value.

From the station (I don't need to point out the familiar décor, do I?) I walk down the High Street and am pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere of the place. While clearly catering to an affluent clientele, the area around the High Street manages to retain a somewhat quaint, but surprisingly welcoming, 'village-y' feel to it.

This is especially true of some of the little back streets, full of quirky little shops and - on Flask Walk for example - the occasional historic pub.



Flask Walk - and The Flask pub



The Flask pub sits on (or near) the site of the old Hampstead 'Wells' (source of a highly regarded and much imbibed mineral water. There's also a Well Walk at the other end of Flask Walk, so I imagine the exact location of the spring was somewhere between the two. In its heyday the water was as prized as that from Epsom or Buxton or - and I hadn't been aware of this before now - that which came from, and gave its name to, Tunbridge Wells. The connection now seems obvious of course, but before today I had completely missed the significance of the word Wells in Tunbridge's name.



Hampstead High Street



Back on the High Street I pass several artisan bakeries, upmarket clothes shops, and a few more familiar names like Waterstones and Starbucks. I also notice something rather peculiar about one of the side streets running off the High Street.

At first glance Willoughby Road, and more specifically the sign that informs you of its name, seems to be a fairly typical example of the local area. The street signs around here tend to be of the 'mosaic' style - in other words they are spelled out 'Scrabble-style' with individual letter tiles which are stuck onto the walls of the houses at each end of the street.

Something about the sign for Willoughby Road, however, catches the corner of my eye and I take a second, and then a third glance, before I realise what it is. The sign actually reads "WILLQUGHBY RD" - it appears that the sign-fitters ran out of the letter O and decided that a Q was a close-enough substitute.

And it's not the only street to suffer this fate. Further north, Templewood Avenue has not only had its Os replaced with Qs, but they also seem to have run out of blank tiles, so instead of a 'space' they've put a 'comma'. It's true that - in an effort to disguise the Qs they've been put in upside down, but the whole effect is really rather odd:

"TEMPLEWΌΌD,AVENUE"

***

I turn off the main road and go in search of one of the many historic houses in Hampstead, and one which now houses the Hampstead Museum.



Burgh House



Sadly the house in question - Burgh House - is closed and doesn't open its doors to the public until 12pm.

I'm reminded of the last time I tried to visit a museum in this part of town - the Freud Museum over towards the Finchley Road. That too only opened at 12pm. Perhaps this is a reflection of their location in such an affluent area - the leisured classes can't possibly be expected to do anything as strenuous as visiting a museum before luncheon...

I head on to the next station - Hampstead Heath - which sits at the bottom of the Heath which gives it its name.

Hampstead Heath

Before venturing onto the heath itself, however, I take a brief stroll around the streets near the station. This is another little 'village' of bakeries, coffee shops and pubs, and has similarly grand looking architecture.

The Royal Free Hospital dominates the area, and was one of two hospitals set up by William Marsden to provide (in the bad old days before the NHS) free healthcare to the less well-off (the other was the Royal Marsden Hospital).

On another back street is the house once belonging to the poet Keats. This is now a museum and is therefore - when I visit it - closed to the public until 1pm.

Keats' House

The house, or rather its garden, was apparently where he wrote the poem 'Ode To A Nightingale' - a jolly little piece about death that begins:



"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,"

And goes downhill from there.

Keats wos 'ere

In any case, since the museums of Hampstead are determined to keep their doors closed to visitors, I decide to make my way to the huge area of open space called Hampstead Heath - at least they can't close that down!

The heath is vast. It's the largest area of ancient parkland in London - all 790 acres of it - and I therefore only visit a small portion of it today. I start by walking up East Heath Road to the intriguingly named 'Vale Of Health'.

My research tells me that this little road at the north end of the Heath is the site of a small hamlet originally called Gangmoor, and subsequently Hachett's or Hatch's Bottom after one of the resident cottagers. (I'm reasonably certain the word 'cottager' here is being used here in its literal sense of someone who lives in a cottage, rather than the more modern slang - though given Hampstead Heath's reputation one can never be entirely sure...)

The name Vale Of Health is actually an ironic one, since the area was very much an unpleasant boggy marsh originally. And even when people started living and working here, they did so in laundries, tanning pits, varnish factories and the like.

Vale Of Health Pond

The change of name was clearly intended to throw off such associations - and it seems to have worked as this is now one of the most expensive areas to live in Hampstead, which is saying a lot.



“This is the land of Narnia" said
the Faun, "where we are now;
all that lies between the lamp-
post and the great castle of Cair
Paravel on the eastern sea.”
C.S. Lewis



I wander along the nearest thing that could vaguely be considered a footpath, and come across the sort of lamp-post from behind which Mr Tumnus might have popped put to startle any visiting Pevensie children. I can imagine that on a snowy winter's day this place must give Narnia a real run for its money.

It's by the first of the Heath's many 'ponds' - although don't be deceived, any relationship to the two-foot diameter sunken plastic goldfish bowl jobs in most back gardens is entirely coincidental. These ponds are lakes - some for swimming, others for wildlife.

Further along I find myself on a wider path - it could even be a road - called Lime Avenue.

This cuts right across the Heath and is usually full of dog-walkers.

Lime Avenue



Hearts On The Heath

To one side of the avenue I spot some trees which have been cut down. On the exposed trunks someone has stencilled some red hearts. I take a photo as I find them interesting but I have no idea what they symbolise so if anyone can enlighten me, please do so.

Next I come to another pond - and this is one of Hampstead Heath's famous bathing ponds.

These were officially designated as bathing ponds in the late 1800s although I can't imagine they had been unused before then. There are three bathing ponds, two for single-sex and one for mixed bathing.

The one I stand next to now is the Mixed Bathing Pond, and I have to say, I'm not particularly tempted to go for a dip. I'm sure the water is lovely on a scorching hot day but right now I most definitely want to keep my clothes on.

Mixed Bathing Pond

I could of course spend hours wandering around the Heath, but that wouldn't get me very far down my list of stations, so instead I move on and make my way to the next stop on my list - and one fairly close to home for me - Hanger Lane.

***

The station sits on the island of the large multi-lane roundabout (or Gyratory System as the powers that be for some reason seem to want to call this one) that gives it its name.

Hanger Lane

The traffic is certainly the main feature around here, and you haven't really experienced the Gyratory System unless you've done it behind the wheel of a car trying desperately to negotiate the different lanes (anywhere between 4 and 8 of them) and various exits.

At its busiest it can see up to 10,000 vehicles an hour and I try to take a picture that shows the manic chaos that is pretty much the norm on the roundabout, but no still image will really do it justice.

Pick a lane, any lane...

Instead let me point you to the entry on the H2G2 website, which I think sums it up rather nicely.

I use the various pedestrian subways to get me onto the island itself, where in addition the tube station there is supposed to be a nature reserve of all things.

Nature very much in Reserve

This seems to consist of a couple of grass verges with a few trees and a smattering of daffodils - hardly the Hanging Gardens of Babylon...

A View From The Bridge
Tube tracks and motorway in perfect harmony.

The station is, as I mentioned earlier, reasonably close to home for me, and it's tempting to call it a day here and just head home.

However, it's early enough in the day that I should be able to manage at least one more and possibly even two more stations, so I set off once again, on the rather convoluted route to Harlesden.

***

Harlesden is on the Bakerloo and the Overground lines and is in the North West of London pretty much due north of Hanger Lane.

To get there from Hanger Lane however requires a journey into town on the Central Line, changing at White City to walk to the Circle Line station at Wood Lane, where you get a train to Paddington, change onto the Bakerloo Line, and finally end up at Harlesden.

Harlesden

And when you get there you wonder why you bothered.

The station itself is actually nowhere near the centre of Harlesden and is in fact on Acton Lane - a fairly nondescript road which joins the industrial area of Park Royal with the slightly less industrial area of Harlesden.

The road does cross the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, but that's really in Park Royal rather than Harlesden, and to get to Harlesden town centre would take a good half hour on foot.

So after a disappointingly brief visit, I move on to my final destination today - also on the Overground Line.

***

Harringay Green Lanes

Harringay Green Lanes - for such is the name of the station - is on the road called Green Lanes, in the area of London known as Harringay.

Or is it?

Could it instead - as the bus stop next to the station would have it - be the station of Haringey Green Lanes, in the London Borough of Haringey?

I can understand - at a push - the fact that a chap called Haering (a saxon chief) had a 'Hege' - or 'enclosure' - in this area called Haeringes-Hege, and that over time this was corrupted into both Haringey (the London Borough) and Harringay (the district within the London borough) as well as - less obviously perhaps - another district called Hornsey.

I can also - just about, though it's stretching my understanding to its very limits - forgive the successive town councils who, having once decided that Harringay and Haringey were two separate entities, refused to make life easy for everyone once and for all by just spelling them the same way.





That's what town councils are for, after all.

Haringey Green Lanes

What baffles the bejeesus out of me is how anyone with any sense whatsoever can allow a station called Harringay Green Lanes to have a sign saying Harringay Green Lanes outside it, while a few feet away a bus stop is telling everyone they're at a station called Haringey Green Lanes!

Or maybe - like Hampstead - they just ran out of the right letters...

Under the railway bridge (which tells us that an unspecified 'it' is coming) is the site of the former Harringay Arena - now a retail park.

Yes, but what's coming exactly..?

Here I find the usual selection of shops and restaurants, but little else to interest me. I stop for a coffee in the Costa Coffee and wait for whatever it is that's supposed to be 'coming' - but it seems not to be due any time soon.

Maybe it got lost in all the confusion over place names.

'Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent'

Day 41

 

Hackney Central - Hackney Wick - Haggerston - Hainault - Hammersmith

 

The sun is shining once again as I set off on my journey this morning - could it finally be heralding the start of Spring I wonder?

 

On the other hand, we do still have April - with its traditional showers - ahead of us, so we're probably not (ahem) home and dry just yet.

 

It's also the first day of my foray into the H section, and oh boy there are a lot of them. Whereas the letter G had a mere 13 stations to visit, there are 36 Hs - the most for any letter so far. Admittedly a fair few of them - including the first couple on my list - are in little regional 'pockets', so perhaps it won't take me as long as I fear to visit them all.

 

***

We start off with Hackney Central, on the north-eastern stretch of the Overground line. This means a couple of changes - from Central to Victoria, and then onto the Overground - before I even get there.

 

The station is tucked away from the main street - Mare Street - and, like several on the Overground, is elevated.

 



Hackney Central



Hackney Central is - as the name suggests - the central area of Hackney Borough, which also includes areas like Stoke Newington, Hoxton, Shoreditch and Homerton. The original Hackney Village, from which it grew, was the area around the main road, then called Church Street, but which is now called Mare Street.

 

From Tudor times up until the early 1800s the area was apparently a fashionable rural retreat, and Henry VIII even had a palace here. Then as the industrial revolution took hold and the area became more and more built up, its fortunes declined and it's now seen, perhaps unfairly, as one of London's less salubrious areas.

 

On the other hand it still attracts a diverse range of visitors, particularly to one of its main landmarks - the Hackney Empire.

 



Hackney Empire - original entrance



A former music hall, where Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, WC Fields, Marie Lloyd and Stanley Holloway once trod the boards, it's now a Grade II Listed Building and following brief stints as a bingo hall and TV studios, these days it's a successful and respected theatre space. It was designed by a chap called Frank Matcham, who also designed many other London and regional theatres, including The Coliseum, The Palladium, The Hippodrome and Richmond Theatre.

 

The redeveloped Empire

 

Further south is the Town Hall, and council buildings, which contain the Hackney Museum.

 

Free to the public, and I would guess primarily aimed at children, it houses an eclectic collection of exhibits of everything from eel pie baking tins, to Hackney's first (hand-pumped) fire engine.

 



Hand-pumped fire engine

 



History of immigration

Daniel Defoe - who
lived in the area

Home Appliances



 

I enjoy the brief wander through the museum but since it's not very large it only takes me ten or fifteen minutes to make my way round it. Back outside, Hackney seems to be a relatively quiet place - at least today - and having seen what the area south of the station has to offer, it's not long before I'm heading northwards again to see another bit of local history, and Hackney's oldest building - St Augustine's Tower.

 

St Augustine's Tower

The tower which currently stands in the grounds of St John's Church dates from the 16th Century, although the original church which once stood here was built in the 13th Century.

 

The church was rebuilt and expanded over the years until in the late 18th Century it was pulled down (apart from the tower of course which still housed the church bells) to be rebuilt at a new site to the north - the current St John's Church.

 

Today it's all shut up, so after a pause to take a photo, I decide to move on from Hackney Central and have a look at Hackney Wick.

 

 

***

Hackney Central, as I have mentioned, was once called Hackney Village.

 

Hackney Wick, which lies some distance to the east, and is separated from it by the area known as Homerton, could theoretically also be called Hackney Village - since that's what Wick (or in some cases Wich) actually means. It's the same word that appears in such place names as Berwick, Chiswick, Keswick and so on, and in it's alternative form as Norwich and Greenwich.

 

Which seems a little odd when you think about it, as that would mean there were once two separate Hackney Villages, about 2km apart.

 

Of course, one of them was technically called the 'village', and the other the 'wick' - but isn't that rather splitting hairs? I mean, I might call it mashed potato and you might call it Pommes Purées - but it's still a load of brown lumpy things squashed up on a plate.

Or is it like North and South Korea? Are they all sat there planning to send large thermonuclear devices into each others' back yards...?

***



Hackney Wick

Hackney Wick sits between Victoria Park - a large area of open parkland - to the west, and the more recently developed Olympic Park (for the 2012 games) to the east. Since the latter is more readily associated with Stratford tube station (which thanks to the games is now Stratford International station), I'm going to leave my exploration of the Olympic Park until I get to the 'S's.

Instead I wander through the erstwhile industrialised streets of the Wick, marvelling at the quality and variety of graffiti (or perhaps it should be called 'street art') I see on practically every brick surface.

Some graffiti

The area seems to have become a bit of a haven for artists in recent years, as they take over derelict factories and turn them into studios of one kind or another.

Some more graffiti

Is it the same artists working inside the buildings as the ones decorating the outside, I wonder? Or are the ones inside on the phone to the council every day about the 'defacement' of their property?

Given the sheer scale of most of the artwork - which clearly took some time and not a little physical agility to complete - I have to assume that it's all been officially sanctioned. I can't really see the local bobby failing to notice the ladders, ropes and scaffolding which must have been employed to create these murals.

And some more graffiti

I head next into Victoria Park, which is a fairly standard - though nevertheless pleasant example of the sort of inner city park dotted around London. The landscape is mainly flat and open grassland - with a few games areas marked out - but there are trees enough around the perimeter and various points of interest to discover if you so wish - which of course I do.



London Bridge Alcoves

By the north-east gate, which is where I enter the park, there are two huge stone alcoves standing sentinel over the rest of the park.

 

These come from the original stone-built London Bridge (there had of course been previous wooden-built bridges) which was built over 33 years from 1176 and stood for over 600 years. As well as the alcoves (of which there were 14 along its length) the bridge was almost a small village, with houses and shops, often several storeys tall lining its length.

When the old bridge was demolished in 1831 the alcoves were saved, and donated 'for the use of the public' in 1860.

Alcove Interior

 

A notice by the alcoves gives their history and quotes a contemporary source, who suggested that their clever construction and positioning gave them a curiously useful acoustic property, as follows:

'So just are there proportions, and so complete and uniform their symmetry, that, if a person whispers against the wall on the one side of the way, he may be plainly heard on the opposite side; and parties may converse without being prevented by the interruption of the street or the noise of carriages.'

Since the two here face into the park, rather than toward each other, it's impossible to test the theory, but I like the idea of this early form of telephonic communication.

Rather like Hackney Central, however, I feel after only a short time that I've seen all there is to see here, and so make my way back to the station to begin the slightly convoluted journey to my next stop - Haggerston.

***

Haggerston, like both Hackney Central and Hackney Wick, is on the Overground Line. Unlike them however, it is on the branch heading south towards Crystal Palace and Croydon. This means I have to travel back west towards Highbury & Islington (although I actually change at Canonbury) and then swap lines to head south instead of east.

Haggerston

The station is relatively new - being opened in 2010 - but its vaguely familiar 'blocky' design is very definitely a nod to the work of Charles Holden.

Having already been mildly disappointed with the two places I've so far visited today - very pleasant and all that, but not much really going on - I'm sad to say Haggerston doesn't offer much more in the way of diversion.

In fact, other than being the birthplace of the astronomer Edmond Halley, the only thing the area seems to have going for it is the fact that it nestles on the Regent's Canal, and has a little mooring for narrow-boats called Kingsland Basin which does at least add a splash of colour to the area.



Regent's Canal

I wander down to the canal (ever wary, of course, after my towpath-based adventures in Bounds Green) and discover a quiet but pleasant stretch of waterway to stroll along.



Kingsland Basin

Well, I say 'quiet' - it's certainly true that the decibel count is fairly low here, but at this time of day you do have to dodge and weave your way through a plague of lunchtime-joggers of almost biblical proportions - and that's before the cyclists get going...

As I walk back up to the station I hear something I've not previously heard anywhere in London - perhaps surprisingly, given the ethnic make-up of many of the areas I've been to. From the top of the nearby Suleymaniye Mosque's minaret, comes the sound of a Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

Whenever I've heard it on documentaries or TV shows, I've always found the call to prayer to be a curiously pleasant sound - despite not having the slightest interest in the religion it represents - so I'm quite happy to let it waft over me as I walk back along the main road. I'm just surprised to realise that I don't think I've heard it from any other mosques I've happened to walk past.

If, like me, you've ever wondered what the Muezzin is actually calling, you're in luck as thanks to my friend Mr Google I can enlighten you today:

"Allah is most great. I testify that there is no god but Allah. I testify that Mohammed is the prophet of Allah. Come to prayer. Come to salvation. Allah is most great. There is no god but Allah."

Each phrase is repeated varying numbers of times and for those who struggle with their early morning devotions, there's the rather charming addition of the words "Prayer is better than sleep" in the first call of the day.

***

But again, no sooner have I got here than I feel like I've seen everything the place has to offer - and I'm heading back to the station, back north on the train, to change once again at Canonbury onto the eastern branch of the Overground Line to Stratford, to change again there onto the Central Line towards Hainault.

***

Hainault, is of course on the Hainault Loop - that portion of the Central Line I've so far found so strangely unfulfilling every time I've visited one of its stations.

I wish I could say that Hainault manages to surprise me and that my mind is changed about this part of London - but sadly not.

Hainault

The station is pretty much the only point of interest on a very long, very straight, and very dull stretch of road called New North Road. The road disappears off into the distance in both directions, interrupted only by the occasional petrol station or newsagent, and even looking on the map there seems to be nothing much further afield worth looking at.

In fact the only thing I might have been tempted by - if it wasn't so far away - is Hainault Forest. It's a good 2km off down the road, and without knowing much more about what I might find there, I really can't bring myself to undertake the obviously dull walk there and back.

I think the thing that gets me about these places is that none of them seem to have any sort of 'hub' or 'centre'. Most places, it seems to me, grow outwards from a main street or shopping area - but that doesn't appear to be the case here. There are shops, but they seem to have been plonked down haphazardly wherever it took the owner's fancy.

So, after the briefest of wanderings up and down outside the station, I head westwards again - but this time towards what I do at least know to be a more lively part of town.

***

Ah, Hammersmith...

Hammersmith - people! shops! life!

Ok, so it's not the Hanging Gardens of Babylon - but at least there's a bit of life here!

And actually, of course, it does see its fair share of the great and the good, since it's the home to one of the most famous live music and comedy venues in London - the Hammersmith Apollo (but more of that anon).

I arrive in Hammersmith on the Piccadilly Line, which means I emerge from the station which is contained in the Hammersmith Broadway Shopping Centre (see photo above). A separate station, which is a terminus for the Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines, is a short distance away on Beadon Road.

Hammersmith's other station

What is odd is that, on the back of my now rather battered and dog-eared copy of the tube map, there is only one station listed in Hammersmith, not two. Astute readers may remember that, when I was contemplating my visit to Edgware Road's brace of eponymous stations (which can hardly be much farther apart than those in Hammersmith) I spent some little time deliberating as to whether to treat them separately or not. In the end, since they served different tube lines from separate buildings, I decided I couldn't in all conscience treat them as a single entity.

Which is exactly the case here in Hammersmith - so I'm a little puzzled as to why Transport For London, in publishing and printing its maps for the tube travelling masses, thinks it can get away with it, if I can't!

The Lyric Theatre

Around the corner from the second station (second - got that TFL? - different, other, not the same!!!) is my second theatre of the day (or perhaps all London's theatres should be considered as just one venue, eh TFL?......... alright, I'll stop now - but you get my point...).

The Lyric Theatre's original building was designed and built by the same man as the Hackney Empire - Frank Matcham. That building was closed in 1966, but was carefully dismantled and rebuilt on a new site nearby. It re-opened in 1979.

 

In front of the theatre is a small piazza which - especially in summer months - is heaving with Frappuccino drinking office staff.

 

 

A little farther south, on an otherwise anonymous pedestrian crossing island on Queen Caroline Street, is a black cast-iron bench, bearing a small plaque.

 



'Rik Mayall's Bench'



This is a replacement for a wooden bench that stood here previously, and was featured in the opening credits to the BBC comedy 'Bottom' starring Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson.

 



Plaque to Rik Mayall



Following Rik Mayall's untimely death last year, thousands of fans petitioned to have the bench replaced, and it has become something of a shrine to the late comedian, with letters, photos, and at one time even a pair of grubby 'Bottom-esque' underpants hung around the railings.

 

The Rik Mayall 'Shrine'

South of the bench, under the shadow of the Hammersmith flyover - an elevated section of the A4 - is the concert venue now known as the Eventim Apollo. Depending on your age-bracket, however, you might know it more familiarly as the Hammersmith Apollo, the Carling Apollo, the Labatt's Apollo, the Hammersmith Odeon, The 'Hammy-O', or even the Gaumont Palace (though you'd have to be getting on a bit to remember that name).

 

The 'Hammy-O'

Most big names in music have played here at one time or another including Buddy Holly, The Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Thin Lizzy, The Who, Dire Straits, Blondie, Duran Duran,  Tears For Fears, Culture Club, Kylie, and many more. And it's not just rock stars who come here - comedy stars who haven't yet succumbed to the lure of huge arenas like the O2 can often be seen performing here.

 

Further south again is the river, crossed by Hammersmith Bridge - a suspension bridge designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette.

 



Hammersmith Bridge



The bridge, though not an especially vital transport link, has nevertheless been the subject of various terrorist attacks over its lifetime, from a bomb in a suitcase in 1939 (discovered by a passer-by and thrown into the river just before it exploded) to the only marginally more successful bomb set off by the 'Real IRA' in the early hours of June 1, 2000.

 

As it happens, my wife Mrs Nowhere Man used to own a house-boat which was moored just a few yards away from the bridge, and was actually staying on it on the night the bomb went off.

 

Not that, at the time, it was a particularly harrowing event for her, as it seems she pretty much slept through most of the excitement. Having had one or two* drinks the evening before, she was sleeping fairly soundly when the explosion occurred at around 4.30am. She did wake up and (in modern parlance) thought 'WTF?!' - but in the absence of any further information promptly fell back to sleep again.

 

It was only when she got up for work the next morning and had to do a kind of hundred metre hurdles over several sections of police tape, that she discovered what had happened.

 

(* - the exact amount is lost in the mists of history, but clearly must have been enough to mask the cacophony of dozens of emergency sirens, boat-dwellers being evacuated, and startled birdlife that presumably filled the air that morning.)

 

***

Just before I head back to the station, on a jetty under the bridge, I spot a guitar-player strumming merrily away. I wonder if he's playing 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'...

 

Water Music

 

'I Can See For Miles'

Day 40

 

Greenwich - Green Park - Gunnersbury

 

Finally! Some sunshine to relieve the monotonous grey of the last few weeks.

And another - hopefully - auspicious day as I pass another alphabetical milestone and complete the Gs.

And what a lovely place to kick off the day. Greenwich really is a very pleasant place to spend a couple of hours. It's got a park, the river, historical landmarks, and a vibrant town centre - what more could you possibly ask for?

Well, a sign telling you where the hell you are might be a good place to start...

As usual, the DLR station at Greenwich is singularly lacking in any decent signage, and it takes me a good five minutes of wandering back and forth between the two exits to find any mention of the word 'Greenwich'.

In doing so, I encounter two rather unusual sights - one of which is just a little quirky, while the other is downright odd.

The first is just some funky decoration for the building that stands next to one of the station exits:

Greenwich building décor

I have no idea what the building contains, nor why multi-coloured bicycles should have been hung from it in this fashion - unless it's a nod to Greenwich's maritime history. Though I rather think that was a different Raleigh... Actually, I suspect it's just something achingly trendy to do with media or design.

The second odd thing is the crowd of people stood at the entrance to the station where I finally find a sign I can take a photo of:



Greenwich

They have all come from one of the buildings next to the station, from which the sounds of a fire alarm can be heard. It appears to be a fire drill. So far so normal. And at first glance you may not notice anything particularly unusual in the picture, but look more closely and you might just be able to make out, in the centre, a young woman who seems not only to be wearing pink pyjamas, but also carrying a large teddy-bear.

Now this is most definitely not the usual attire for the office.

Actually, when I pass back through the crowd to get to the other entrance to the station, I begin to doubt that it is an office these people have come from, as there are several more in the crowd (all women for some reason) dressed in bed-wear. Maybe it's a hospital - though the others don't look particularly like doctors - or, perhaps more likely, a college. This does have all the hallmarks of a student rag week event.

In the absence of any further explanation, and on the assumption I'm not still in bed myself and this is all some weird dream, I head into Greenwich centre.

Cutty Sark station - which I've already visited - is actually the most central of Greenwich's two DLR stations, and it's quite a walk from the one I've come to today into the town centre. Having seen that famous vessel when I was last here, I head instead towards Greenwich Park, where the other main landmarks can be found.

The park starts off as a rather pleasant, slightly sloped area of trees and grass, but then becomes a, frankly, ridiculously steep climb up a hill, atop which sits the park's main attraction - The Royal Observatory.

Greenwich Park - and Royal Observatory

The Observatory was built in 1676, having been commissioned by Charles II - who created the position of Astronomer Royal with the instruction that the Astronomer should "apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying of the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so much desired longitude of places for the perfecting of the art of navigation." Ultimately this would lead to the adoption of the Greenwich Meridian by international navigators, and Greenwich Mean Time as the 'zero hour' from which all world time is calculated.

 

Shepherd Gate Clock -
showing Greenwich Mean Time.
Below are standard
units of measurement

The relationship between Time and navigation is a relatively complex one, but in simple terms, if you know the exact time at a fixed point on Earth, and the exact time where you are at some other point on Earth, the difference between them will enable you to calculate your location (at least as far as longitude goes - latitude is a different matter.)

 

 

 

The Greenwich Meridian

The fixed point was a line of Longitude known as the Prime Meridian, and for centuries different nations each measured from their own line.

 

 


Eventually however, at a conference as late as 1884, the Greenwich Meridian was adopted by the world as the point where East meets West.

 



Sorry love - you're still
in the same hemisphere...

And ever since then countless tourists have visited the observatory and stood with a foot either side of the stainless steel strip in the ground marking the meridian - standing in both the eastern and western hemispheres at the same time...

Well... actually, not quite.

That would have been true up until the late 20th Century, but with the advent of satellite GPS and other technical jiggery-pokery far too complicated to understand without a degree in astrophysics, it became clear that the Earth wasn't, so to speak, playing ball.

 

 

 

 

Movements in tectonic plates and other factors mean that the line designated 0° 00′ 00.00″ W is constantly changing, but in any case is actually about 100 metres to the east of the steel strip everybody is so delightedly straddling.

 

One of many sundials.
Yes it is a sundial -the
tips of the tails don't quite
meet, so the sunlight is
focused to a point on
the metal plate beneath.

Time Ball - sailors on the river
set their chronometers at 1pm
the moment the ball began to
drop (not when it hit the bottom).

Having latched onto the importance of accurately determining Time, the folk at the observatory seem to have become rather obsessed by it. There are sundials everywhere - in all shapes and sizes - and on the roof of the observatory is a 'time ball', which signalled the exact time of 1pm (why 1pm rather than noon, I have no idea) at the moment it dropped.

Obviously as well as time, the observatory was used to study the movement of the stars and planets, and the second person to hold the title Astronomer Royal was a certain Edmond Halley - discoverer of the comet which now bears his name.

 

His original tombstone (which was moved when the church where he was buried was demolished and rebuilt) is now built into one of the walls of the observatory.

 

A planetarium, open to the public, is housed beneath a huge bronze-clad structure, which is a truncated cone in shape.

 

Cosmic man...

Planetarium - beneath the cone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This shape, as is explained by the sign next to it, is designed to be precisely aligned with various celestial and terrestrial points of reference - which unfortunately somehow still fails to prevent it looking like the chimney from a steam-ship.

 

What is far more interesting is the view from the observatory out across the park, and towards the river. You really can see for miles from here.

 

Old meets New

In the background are various modern landmarks, and in the foreground is the Queen's House (that's Queen Anne, wife of James I) and the National Maritime Museum. The 17th and the 21st Centuries standing one in front of the other. It's almost like one of those photo-shopped images that occasionally do the rounds on Facebook - where a modern-day photo is superimposed onto an old black and white shot of the same location.

 

The Queen's House

I wander back down the hill and stroll along the façade of the Queen's House, and along its colonnades. These were added n 1807 to link the main house with additional wings which were built to house the pupils of what by that time had become a school for the sons of seamen.

 

When life gives you columns - make colonnades...

 

I continue to the west of the Queen's House, past the Maritime Museum. I don't have time to go in as I need to be moving on, but I do like the humorous sculpture outside the entrance.

 

Ship in a bottle

And that's it for Greenwich - at least for me. I'd happily come back and spend the whole day here, and I know there's more to discover. But it's high time I was back on the tracks and heading to my next destination - Green Park.

 

***

The station at Green Park, like most of the others in Central London, has various exits, leading to different locations at street level. But I think it might be unique in having an exit leading directly into a park - the park of course from which it gets its name.

 

Green Park

The park stretches from Piccadilly along its northern border, down to Buckingham Palace and the Mall (my second Queen's House of the day!) - and like the other main parks in London, is full of tourists, joggers, and lunching office workers.

 

I head west first of all, to the first of the park's monuments. This is dedicated to the men of RAF Bomber Command and aircrews from other nations who died in WWII.

 

Bomber Command Memorial

 

The second memorial, also dedicated to those who died in battle, is the Canada Memorial.

 

Canada Memorial

This commemorates Canadian forces killed in both the first and second world wars and is designed to have water flowing over it to give the impression that the Maple leaves embedded in the red granite are actually floating.

 

No water flowing today - but you get the idea.

The taps don't seem to be turned on today however, which is a shame as I think the effect would be quite stunning.

 

Out of the park at the nearby Canada Gate and onto Constitution Hill, and there's no doubting that we're at one of the leading tourist attractions in the capital.

 

No - she's not in.

Buckingham Palace is a constant throng of people taking photos through the railings, but from this distance it actually looks quite serene.

 

The Union Flag flying on the roof, while no doubt exciting the tourists, is no indication of the presence of the monarch - quite the opposite in fact. Since the death of Diana in 1997, when the tabloid-fuelled masses were supposedly 'disgusted' that there was no flag flying at half mast (there was no flag at all - the Royal Standard, the only flag flown at the palace up till then, and which indicated that the Queen was in residence, was at the time flying over Balmoral, where she was in residence) the protocol has changed and the Queen's Flag Sergeant now flies a Union Flag whenever the Queen is not in residence, and the Royal Standard when she is.

 

If a member of the royal family or other dignitary dies, the Union Flag is then flown at half mast (assuming that is, that the Queen isn't in - it isn't clear whether it's only the Union Flag that is allowed to be at half mast, so I don't know what would happen if someone important died while Her Majesty was at home. Possibly she always makes sure she's elsewhere if she knows someone's about to hop the twig...?)

 

Victoria Memorial

Winged Victory

 

 

In front of the palace is the Victoria Memorial, with its gilded 'Winged Victory' standing over the figure of Victoria herself. (Victoria was the Roman goddess of Victory - and it's a good job they went with the Roman version, as the Greek one was the goddess Nike, so we might have ended up with a giant running shoe in front of the palace.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leading away from the Palace, toward Trafalgar Square, is the wide thoroughfare known as The Mall.

 

The Mall

 

This name (as well as that of Pall Mall which runs parallel to it) comes from the game called Pall-Mall (an early form of Croquet) played on the open field that once stood here. The road was designed as a ceremonial route similar to those in other major cities (like the Champs Elysée in Paris) and is coloured red so as to represent a huge Red Carpet leading to the palace. Surprisingly, this was only introduced in the 1950s - although the road has of course been here for much longer.

 

North of Green Park is Piccadilly - and just a little way along it is possibly the most famous hotel in London.

 

The Ritz

 

The Ritz, named after the man who built it - César Ritz, a Swiss hotelier who also managed the Savoy Hotel - was opened in 1906 and has attracted the rich and famous ever since. You can get a suite for a mere £1860 a night, or if you can't quite stretch to that, you could just go for Afternoon Tea and pay 50 quid or so for a cuppa and a sarnie.

 

Further north still, in the area known as Mayfair, is Berkeley Square, and here again the watchword is very much 'Wealth'. It's no accident that Mayfair is the most expensive property on the Monopoly board. There's both a Bentley and a Rolls Royce showroom in the square, and the clothes on the people bustling along are all very much Designer labelled.

 

Berkeley Square



 

Number 50, Berkeley Square.
Spooky, eh?

There's no sign of any nightingale singing today, sadly, although there are plenty of people '...perfectly willing to swear...' - normally very loudly into their mobile phones to their (presumably hard of hearing) stock-broker chums. I do a very quick circuit of the square, and its central garden, and end up outside number 50. This is reputedly the 'most haunted house in London' (which is a bit like saying The Moon is the celestial body with the highest cheese content) but is simply a shop selling rare books (which, presumably, are all ghost-written...)

 

Having nearly been run over by one too many Rolex-wearing Mercedes drivers, clearly far too important to concern themselves with such trivial things as traffic lights, I leave the delights of Mayfair and head to the final station on the list of 'G's - Gunnersbury.

 

 

 

***

Gunnersbury

Gunnersbury Station, which lies at the Chiswick Roundabout end of Chiswick High Road, but is in the area called Gunnersbury (a kind of Polyfilla area plugging the gap between Ealing, Brentford, Chiswick and Kew) is very much a 'functional' station. It is there to get people from A to B and nothing more.

 

A is wherever you happen to be coming from, while B, in this case, is probably the Chiswick Park business centre across the road - a fairly new development on the site of a former bus depot - or it might be the British Standards Institution (BSI) building in whose shadow the station sits (or possibly cowers - it's a very big building).

 

 

 

 

Chiswick Tower -
The BSI building

The BSI is responsible for the production of documented 'Standards' (technical specifications or testing data) which enable products to be manufactured consistently - and thus be used successfully - around the world.

 

The well-known 'kitemark' in particular is used to denote products which have passed the BSI's safety tests.

 

Like all business parks, industrial estates, commercial centres - call them what you will - the focus is clearly on the working environment, rather than what goes on around it. This stretch of Chiswick High Road has very little to attract the casual visitor, and even the people working here have only a smattering of shops and a pub to entertain them in whatever breaks they have.

 

I don't linger very long on this road therefore, and instead head south towards the M4, whose constant drone of traffic fills the air.

 

I'm not heading for the motorway itself, but for something that every motorist (including me) has probably caught a glimpse of as they speed by, and been mildly surprised by.

 

Onion Dome

Russian Orthodox Church

From the M4 all you see is the bright blue onion dome that sits on its tower - but below is the imposingly named, but otherwise fairly modest, Cathedral of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God and Holy Royal Martyrs - a Russian Orthodox church, which sits by the railway line heading into Gunnersbury Station.

 

It is a relatively new building - dating from 1999 - but the Russian Orthodox church has had a presence in London since the early 18th Century and in particular of course, following the revolution of 1917.

 

From the street you're actually looking at the back of the building, which is fairly plain, but with a little ingenuity (which involves heading back to the main road, across the railway bridge, then down the opposite side of the railway line) I manage to get a view of the front - with its array of bells and a clear view of the dome.

 

It's an impressive sight with which to end today's journey, and I head back to the station - which is of course the last of the 'G's... yippee! - feeling satisfied with a good day's travelling.