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.
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| 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.
***
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| 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!
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| 'Tonda' by Jonathan Loxley |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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...
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| Sunflowers |
Secondly, a more peaceful Japanese style garden called the Kyoto Garden...
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| 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.
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| Koi carp |
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| Waterfall |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Bonsai |
***
Next up is Holloway Road.
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| 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.
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.
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.
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'.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 |
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.
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| Honor Oak Park (Or at least - the top half of it...) |
Fortified by my lunch I make the steep climb up the aforementioned 'One Tree Hill'.
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| One Tree Hill (Erm... I beg to differ...) |
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.
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| The Oak Of Honor (Mark II) |
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| This Oak Tree... |
***
And so to my final stop of the day - Hornchurch.
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| Hornchurch |
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.
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