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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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...?)
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 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:
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.
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).
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.
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'.
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).
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.
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.
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 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...
***
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 |
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 |
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... |
 |
| 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 |
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 |
***
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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...
