Day 73
Queensbury - Queen's Park - Queens Road, Peckham - Queensway
Four stations, and another letter crossed off the list!
That at least is the plan for today - and I'm reasonably confident of achieving it, since the route between them is, for once, relatively uncomplicated.
I'm on to the letter 'Q', which - as any Scrabble player knows - is one of the more obscure letters when it comes to the English Language, and even more so when it comes to English names. In fact, all four stations today share a common theme in their nomenclature - each beginning with the word 'Queen-' and three out of the four are named after the same monarch, Queen Victoria.
The fourth (or rather, since it's top of my list today, the first) is not named after any specific Queen at all, and might easily have had a different name altogether, as you'll see.
The station in question is Queensbury, on the Jubilee Line, and it's up in North West London, about halfway between Harrow and Edgware.
 |
| Queensbury |
The station was opened in 1934 as part of the Metropolitan Line, between Kingsbury and Canons Park and until that point there was no such place as Queensbury.
In an unusual move, the rail company ran a competition in a local newspaper to choose a name for the new station, and the winning (if somewhat predictable) entry was Queensbury - to go with its next door neighbour, Kingsbury.
These days (as we've seen in recent news items) things might have been very different. Not only was the Polar Research Ship RSS David Attenborough very nearly called 'Boaty McBoatface' as the result of a similar competition, but only this week, NASA requested suggestions for the names of seven newly discovered - and possibly life-sustaining - planets.
Suggestions for these have included:
'Far From Trump 1,
Far From Trump 2,
Far From Trump 3... (etc)';
 |
| Mast with roundel, outside the station |
Far From Trump 3... (etc)';
'This one,
'This one,
That one,
The other one... (etc)'
and my personal favourite:
'What,
If,
Their,
People,
Already,
Named,
Them'
No-one seems to have suggested 'Planety McPlanetface' as yet (though it's only a matter of time) and it is of course too late for Queensbury to have been given the name 'Stationy McStationface'. On the other hand, there are several new stations planned for the tube network over the coming few years, so if they run this sort of competition again, you never know...
Anyway, back to Queensbury...
The station sits at one end of a long stretch of neat, bullet-shaped green space - lined on either side by the several shops and restaurants of the Queensbury Station Parade. Judging from the names above many of these establishments, there's clearly a thriving Asian community her, though the faces I see emerging from the tube station are very much a mixed bunch.
There's not a huge amount to see here other than the shops, though these are situated pleasantly enough, so I take a quick wander to the nearby Queensbury Park, to the south west of the station.
Sadly, this is not much more than a big football pitch with a few bedraggled looking trees dotted around, so I assume I've seen all Queensbury has to offer and head off to my next destination.
***
At Queen's Park (not altogether surprisingly, given the name) is another green open space - this time with much more to offer.
I'll come to the park in a little while, but first, the station itself, which is on the unusually named Salusbury Road and is on both the Bakerloo and Overground Lines.
Salusbury was originally an Anglo-Welsh family name, and it seems that the road here was created and named during the reign of Henry VIII, when Welshmen were favoured at court.
The station does, this time, take its name from an existing area in north west London, which in turn takes its name from the local park, which is itself named after Queen Victoria.
The park is just around the corner from the station, and was originally the site of an agricultural show attended by Victoria and Albert. The locals campaigned to keep it as a public space, and the park was officially opened in 1886.
The area (though not the park itself) is also the original home of Queens Park Rangers football club (though for some reason they've dropped the apostrophe). They took their name from the area since most of the players came from here, but in fact they had no permanent home and played in several different grounds in Kensal Rise, Brondesbury, Kilburn, Wormwood Scrubs and others, before settling in Shepherd's Bush in 1917. Perhaps it's this itinerant nature that gave rise to the name 'rangers'...
I spend a pleasant half hour or so in the park - enjoying the open space, the play-areas, the band-stand and even the sight of a local artist stood at his easel - not something you see everywhere in London.
When I set off on my travels this morning I knew that today's blog could really use only one of two songs as its title, given the names of the stations I'd be visiting. These were, of course, Killer Queen and Dancing Queen.
The 'queen' bit was obvious, but how to justify either of the other two words?
Well, 'killer' seemed to be rejected outright, since I expected neither to meet one on the journey (though you never know, given what happened at Bound's Green) nor for the journey to prove a 'killer' itself, being fairly straightforward.
'Dancing' on the other hand seemed equally unlikely. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I personally don't do the 'D-word', and I could hardly expect to encounter a troupe of ballet-dancers or Tiller Girls on my travels...
So I'm afraid I'm going to have to stretch your imaginations a little, by pointing out the chap I spot next to the band-stand, doing Tai-Chi.
Now, I know I'm probably going to offend lots of martial arts practitioners, who will no doubt tell me that each of the moves is actually a highly efficient and elegant method of killing a man at a hundred paces, but you have to admit, it does look - from the outside - like a slow-mo version of John Travolta and Uma Thurman's dance scene in Pulp Fiction...
Anyway, time's moving on, and so must I...
***
And it's way across the other side of town this time. So far I've been in the top left-hand corner of London, but now I'm off to Peckham, in the bottom right.
Queens Road Peckham (another dropped apostrophe for some reason) is on the Overground Line to Clapham Junction and is just a couple of stops south of Canada Water.
I was last in Peckham only a couple of weeks ago when I visited Peckham Rye station, and this is the next station along from there.
The road from which it takes its name was originally called Deptford Lane but was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria, who would use it as her route to the Royal Naval School in New Cross. Today it has a few shops and eateries, as is usual around a station, but is otherwise fairly non-descript.
Running north from this road however, and immediately to the west of the station, is Asylum Road - clearly a name which suggests an interesting history of some kind...
I walk up the road and do indeed find a building (or rather, collection of buildings) which used to be called the Licensed Victuallers' Benevolent Institution Asylum.
However, this was not a home for the insane. The word asylum was used here in its sense of a 'place of refuge', as these were all Alms-Houses - or in effect, retirement homes - for former pub landlords fallen on hard times.
Alms-Houses were a preferable alternative to the workhouse, or worse, and many charitable bodies built communities such as this in the age before benefits and social care.
Just down the road from the 'asylum', in the front garden of an ordinary looking terraced house, is a bit of modern day philanthropy, thanks to someone going by the name of 'Peckhambird'.
Firstly, there's the 'Peckhambird Library' - a little box at the front of the garden, filled with books, which exhorts you to 'take a book - give a book', and reminds us that reading is 'one of the most marvellous adventures anyone can have'.
Then there's the chalk-board resting against a post in the garden. A quick look at Peckhambird's Twitter feed (@Peckhambird) reveals that this carries a different message every day. The messages are the sort of inspirational positive thoughts that might, in other circumstances, be considered twee. (Today's is 'Take Control', and previous messages have included: 'Let it all go, see what stays' and 'If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change')
Somehow though, the fact that the person living here has taken the time and trouble to write these messages, purely for the benefit of people who happen to pass by, gives them a greater value as far as I'm concerned.
Finally, there's a poster in the window which, I think, sums up all the messages very neatly, and is something we could all do with being reminded of at times:
'It's OK to be you'
Quite right.
***
Having had my inner critic given a good talking to by a stranger in Peckham, I move on once again to my fourth and final stop of the day - Queensway.
Way back in the mists of time, when I was still on the letter 'B', I visited another station on the road called Queensway (after which my last station is, of course, named) - Bayswater.
As I mentioned then, the street is north of Hyde Park (or more accurately, Kensington Gardens) and used to be called Black Lion Lane before being renamed in honour of (you guessed it) Queen Victoria, and becoming Queen's Road. For some reason this name was later changed to the current one: Queensway.
The curious thing is that, while the station called Bayswater is on the road called Queensway, the station called Queensway is in the area known as Bayswater...
Another thing I mentioned on my last visit was that, other than a collection of shops selling the sort of gaudy souvenirs designed to relieve the unwary tourist of their hard-earned cash, there's not much of interest on the road outside the station. The only thing of real note here is hidden behind an unassuming entrance a few doors up from the station.
This is the 'Queens Skate Dine Bowl' - one of London's six permanent ice rinks.
In recent years 'pop-up' ice rinks have rather taken over during the winter months, with everywhere from Hampton Court to the Natural History Museum providing us with the opportunity to look like a newly born Bambi for half an hour.
As something of a fan of skating in my younger years, however, I occasionally visited rinks in Oxford, Richmond and here on Queensway - to enjoy the chilly pastime all year round.
It's been a while since my last visit to an ice rink - and that was to one of the aforementioned 'pop-up' variety - so I'm tempted to have a go while I'm here. But wisdom prevails (given that I've still got lots to see in Kensington Gardens, and won't be much good with a broken ankle) and I head south across Bayswater Road and into the park.
Kensington Gardens is the expanse of green stretching from Kensington Palace in the west, to the West Carriage Drive (the road that cuts through the park) in the east. It is, however, considered by many to be simply the western half of Hyde Park - not without validity, since this was once exactly what it was.
Henry VIII created the park (including the Kensington Gardens part) as a hunting park in 1536. Later, in 1728, Queen Caroline (wife of George II) sequestered the western part of the park and had it landscaped into a more formal private garden for the royal residence at Kensington Palace. Nowadays, the two are connected once more, though they still have fences separating them and have different opening hours.
The Palace has been the home of various royals over the years, most recently the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (William and Kate to you and me) and William's parents Charles and Diana.
Since Diana's death a number of areas in the park have been set aside or renamed as memorials to her - and the first of these I encounter is the 'Diana, Princess Of Wales Memorial Playground'.
As well as the usual climbing frames and slides (though with more than a nod to the Peter Pan stories of J.M. Barrie, who lived nearby and set several of his stories here) there is the huge stump of a 900 year old oak tree, intricately carved with the figures of tiny elves, going about their various businesses.
This is the Elfin Oak, and originally came from another royal park - Richmond Park.
It was moved here in 1928, and over the next two years the various figures - each with their own individual character and story - were carved by the artist Ivor Innes.
Sadly, though not altogether unexpectedly, the tree has been the victim of much vandalism over the years, and is now encased in a cage which rather spoils the enjoyment of it. Nevertheless I try and get a couple of decent photos through the bars.
Further south is the 'Round Pond', though any similarity between this 'pond' and the kind of thing you'd plop a couple of goldfish into in your back garden is entirely coincidental.
It's actually not round at all, but rectangular - about 200x150m in size and 5m deep in places. Swans, geese and ducks congregate at the water's edge, hoping to be fed by the tourists, and are generally not disappointed.
And finally we come to the palace itself.
In front of it is the queen (or rather her image in marble), with whom we've become so familiar today - Victoria.
Though still being used as a royal residence, it is - like Buckingham Palace and others - now also open to the public as a tourist attraction. I'm not overly fussed about going inside though, and would much rather spend another half hour or so wandering in the fresh air of the park.
And that's exactly what I do next - so that's where I'll leave you for today, and I look forward to kicking off a new letter with you very shortly.
Bye for now...
 |
| Queensbury Station Parade and Green |
 |
| The mast, and shops beyond. |
Sadly, this is not much more than a big football pitch with a few bedraggled looking trees dotted around, so I assume I've seen all Queensbury has to offer and head off to my next destination.
***
At Queen's Park (not altogether surprisingly, given the name) is another green open space - this time with much more to offer.
 |
| Queen's Park |
I'll come to the park in a little while, but first, the station itself, which is on the unusually named Salusbury Road and is on both the Bakerloo and Overground Lines.
Salusbury was originally an Anglo-Welsh family name, and it seems that the road here was created and named during the reign of Henry VIII, when Welshmen were favoured at court.
The station does, this time, take its name from an existing area in north west London, which in turn takes its name from the local park, which is itself named after Queen Victoria.
 |
| Entrance to Queen's Park |
The park is just around the corner from the station, and was originally the site of an agricultural show attended by Victoria and Albert. The locals campaigned to keep it as a public space, and the park was officially opened in 1886.
The area (though not the park itself) is also the original home of Queens Park Rangers football club (though for some reason they've dropped the apostrophe). They took their name from the area since most of the players came from here, but in fact they had no permanent home and played in several different grounds in Kensal Rise, Brondesbury, Kilburn, Wormwood Scrubs and others, before settling in Shepherd's Bush in 1917. Perhaps it's this itinerant nature that gave rise to the name 'rangers'...
 |
| Queen's Park |
 |
| Curious Carving... |
I spend a pleasant half hour or so in the park - enjoying the open space, the play-areas, the band-stand and even the sight of a local artist stood at his easel - not something you see everywhere in London.
 |
| Portrait of the artist... |
When I set off on my travels this morning I knew that today's blog could really use only one of two songs as its title, given the names of the stations I'd be visiting. These were, of course, Killer Queen and Dancing Queen.
The 'queen' bit was obvious, but how to justify either of the other two words?
Well, 'killer' seemed to be rejected outright, since I expected neither to meet one on the journey (though you never know, given what happened at Bound's Green) nor for the journey to prove a 'killer' itself, being fairly straightforward.
'Dancing' on the other hand seemed equally unlikely. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I personally don't do the 'D-word', and I could hardly expect to encounter a troupe of ballet-dancers or Tiller Girls on my travels...
So I'm afraid I'm going to have to stretch your imaginations a little, by pointing out the chap I spot next to the band-stand, doing Tai-Chi.
 |
| Bandstand |
Anyway, time's moving on, and so must I...
***
And it's way across the other side of town this time. So far I've been in the top left-hand corner of London, but now I'm off to Peckham, in the bottom right.
Queens Road Peckham (another dropped apostrophe for some reason) is on the Overground Line to Clapham Junction and is just a couple of stops south of Canada Water.
 |
| Queens Road Peckham |
I was last in Peckham only a couple of weeks ago when I visited Peckham Rye station, and this is the next station along from there.
The road from which it takes its name was originally called Deptford Lane but was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria, who would use it as her route to the Royal Naval School in New Cross. Today it has a few shops and eateries, as is usual around a station, but is otherwise fairly non-descript.
Running north from this road however, and immediately to the west of the station, is Asylum Road - clearly a name which suggests an interesting history of some kind...
I walk up the road and do indeed find a building (or rather, collection of buildings) which used to be called the Licensed Victuallers' Benevolent Institution Asylum.
 |
| The 'Asylum' |
However, this was not a home for the insane. The word asylum was used here in its sense of a 'place of refuge', as these were all Alms-Houses - or in effect, retirement homes - for former pub landlords fallen on hard times.
Alms-Houses were a preferable alternative to the workhouse, or worse, and many charitable bodies built communities such as this in the age before benefits and social care.
Just down the road from the 'asylum', in the front garden of an ordinary looking terraced house, is a bit of modern day philanthropy, thanks to someone going by the name of 'Peckhambird'.
 |
| Peckhambird Library |
Then there's the chalk-board resting against a post in the garden. A quick look at Peckhambird's Twitter feed (@Peckhambird) reveals that this carries a different message every day. The messages are the sort of inspirational positive thoughts that might, in other circumstances, be considered twee. (Today's is 'Take Control', and previous messages have included: 'Let it all go, see what stays' and 'If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change')
Somehow though, the fact that the person living here has taken the time and trouble to write these messages, purely for the benefit of people who happen to pass by, gives them a greater value as far as I'm concerned.
Finally, there's a poster in the window which, I think, sums up all the messages very neatly, and is something we could all do with being reminded of at times:
'It's OK to be you'
Quite right.
***
Having had my inner critic given a good talking to by a stranger in Peckham, I move on once again to my fourth and final stop of the day - Queensway.
 |
| Queensway (the station) |
Way back in the mists of time, when I was still on the letter 'B', I visited another station on the road called Queensway (after which my last station is, of course, named) - Bayswater.
 |
| Queensway (the street) |
As I mentioned then, the street is north of Hyde Park (or more accurately, Kensington Gardens) and used to be called Black Lion Lane before being renamed in honour of (you guessed it) Queen Victoria, and becoming Queen's Road. For some reason this name was later changed to the current one: Queensway.
The curious thing is that, while the station called Bayswater is on the road called Queensway, the station called Queensway is in the area known as Bayswater...
Another thing I mentioned on my last visit was that, other than a collection of shops selling the sort of gaudy souvenirs designed to relieve the unwary tourist of their hard-earned cash, there's not much of interest on the road outside the station. The only thing of real note here is hidden behind an unassuming entrance a few doors up from the station.
This is the 'Queens Skate Dine Bowl' - one of London's six permanent ice rinks.
 |
| Queens Ice Rink |
As something of a fan of skating in my younger years, however, I occasionally visited rinks in Oxford, Richmond and here on Queensway - to enjoy the chilly pastime all year round.
It's been a while since my last visit to an ice rink - and that was to one of the aforementioned 'pop-up' variety - so I'm tempted to have a go while I'm here. But wisdom prevails (given that I've still got lots to see in Kensington Gardens, and won't be much good with a broken ankle) and I head south across Bayswater Road and into the park.
 |
| Kensington Gardens |
Kensington Gardens is the expanse of green stretching from Kensington Palace in the west, to the West Carriage Drive (the road that cuts through the park) in the east. It is, however, considered by many to be simply the western half of Hyde Park - not without validity, since this was once exactly what it was.
Henry VIII created the park (including the Kensington Gardens part) as a hunting park in 1536. Later, in 1728, Queen Caroline (wife of George II) sequestered the western part of the park and had it landscaped into a more formal private garden for the royal residence at Kensington Palace. Nowadays, the two are connected once more, though they still have fences separating them and have different opening hours.
The Palace has been the home of various royals over the years, most recently the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (William and Kate to you and me) and William's parents Charles and Diana.
Since Diana's death a number of areas in the park have been set aside or renamed as memorials to her - and the first of these I encounter is the 'Diana, Princess Of Wales Memorial Playground'.
 |
| Playground |
 |
| Elfin Oak |
This is the Elfin Oak, and originally came from another royal park - Richmond Park.
It was moved here in 1928, and over the next two years the various figures - each with their own individual character and story - were carved by the artist Ivor Innes.
Sadly, though not altogether unexpectedly, the tree has been the victim of much vandalism over the years, and is now encased in a cage which rather spoils the enjoyment of it. Nevertheless I try and get a couple of decent photos through the bars.
 |
| An elf, doing elf-y things, with other elves. |
 |
| The Round Pond |
And finally we come to the palace itself.
 |
| Kensington Palace and Queen Victoria |
 |
| Queen Victoria |
Though still being used as a royal residence, it is - like Buckingham Palace and others - now also open to the public as a tourist attraction. I'm not overly fussed about going inside though, and would much rather spend another half hour or so wandering in the fresh air of the park.
And that's exactly what I do next - so that's where I'll leave you for today, and I look forward to kicking off a new letter with you very shortly.
Bye for now...
