'Love Don't Live Here Anymore'

Day 71

 

Piccadilly Circus - Pimlico - Pinner - Plaistow

 

Ah, Valentine's Day...

 

What better day to venture forth on my travels, to encounter - no doubt - the myriad couples expressing their love for one another in the time honoured ways...

 

Hands being held, joint-selfies being taken, prolonged kisses in the middle of the pavement being enjoyed, pedestrians "ahem-ing" politely in order to get past...

 

Piccadilly Circus



Eros...?

And Piccadilly Circus - my first station today - could hardly be more appropriate. It must surely be a Mecca for London's lovers. I mean, where better than under the benevolent eye of the God of Love himself - otherwise known as Eros - to express one's love for one's partner of choice?

 

Well - anywhere, it would seem.

 

The statue is certainly bereft of any sign of smooching couples.

 

...No - Anteros

Perhaps it's too early in the day - I've arrived at about 10am and though the traffic is its usual congested self, the tourists are rather thinner on the ground.

 

Or perhaps it's an indication of the thorough research done by your modern-day city-dwelling romantic, who has discovered - as of course I have too - that the world-famous statue of the winged Love-God Eros overlooking Piccadilly Circus is - in fact - nothing of the kind...

 

Unveiled in 1893 (on my birthday in fact - the 29th June) the 'Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain' (to give it its official title) is actually of Eros' twin brother - Anteros.

Both were Love-Gods - being the sons of Aphrodite - and before I go on, I have to say that whatever her prowess as Goddess of Love might have been, she must clearly have been a particularly lazy sort of parent if she could do no better than this in the naming of her twin boys Eros and Anteros.

I mean really?! Is that the best you can do?!

The modern day equivalent would be to have two sons called 'Dave' and 'Not-Dave'.

Anyway - whereas Eros was the God of Sensual Love (or, in other words, sex), his brother was the God of 'requited' or 'selfless' Love - and thus a fitting tribute to the Earl Of Shaftesbury, a social reformer and philanthropist who, among other things, instituted reform of the Child Labour laws, Lunacy laws, Mining regulations, and Education for the poor.

 

However, even a selfless and charitable Love-God (when depicted as a strappingly naked young man) was too much for some delicate Victorian sensibilities, and attempts were made to rename him as the 'Angel Of Christian Charity' - which was the closest they could get to making him British rather than Greek...

 

Neither that epithet, nor the official title for the monument, nor the actual name of the God in question have managed to stick, however, and the statue has remained simply 'Eros' for as long as anyone can remember. Even the sign on the tube station exit uses this name now, no doubt to the irritation of commuting classical scholars.

 

Love is in the air...
somewhere... possibly...

 

 

 

In any case, it doesn't seem to have attracted many seekers of romance this morning. I wait in vain for several minutes, hoping to take a suitably saccharine photo of a loving couple, before eventually making do with this pair...

 

 

Hardly Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson are they...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The station itself is one of several in London that  - given its busy location - has wisely chosen to remain entirely underground rather than emerge from a ticket hall at street level, though originally this was not the case. In fact, this station is rather a rarity on the Underground, being the work of both of the famous designers, Leslie Green (who did the original street level station) and Charles Holden (who did the replacement subterranean version).

 

Above ground, the next most famous aspect of Piccadilly Circus after Eros (I know - get over it) is - I imagine - the huge array of illuminated advertising signs on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue. Originally lit with ordinary light-bulbs, and then the more familiar neon signs, they finally went digital in the early 2000s with a change to LED panels.

 

The not-so-illuminated Illuminated Signs...

Currently however, and for the coming several months, the panels have been switched off and will remain off for the longest period since WWII. They're also covered in scaffolding to allow them to be replaced with a single huge LED panel.

 

Theatreland...

Shaftesbury Avenue, above which the signs have urged us to drink more fizzy drinks and eat more hamburgers for all these years, is of course named after the same Earl of Shaftesbury mentioned earlier.

 

The street is synonymous with the Theatre having no fewer than five theatres along its length (six if you go to its far end across Charing Cross Road).

 

This is the 'West End' of theatrical legend - the place where every actor dreams of being in a hit show and every show has to be a hit to survive. As such it is, of course, largely tourist driven, since they're the only ones who can afford to pay the ridiculously high ticket prices.

 

 

 

Piccadilly Circus is, of course, at the end of Piccadilly - the long thoroughfare which stretches westwards from here to Hyde Park.

 

The two other stations along its length - Green Park and Hyde Park Corner - have already been crossed off my list, as you'll remember, so today I need only venture a little way along it from this end.

 

The architecture round here is all rather grand - being once the residences of the wealthy Georgian and Victorian gentry - and even the shops are of the upmarket kind.

 

Fortnum & Mason

 

 

The most well-known is perhaps Fortnum & Mason - purveyors of groceries and luxury foods to the rich and famous. Started by a former employee of the royal household - William Fortnum (who used to sell the leftover stubs of candles from the royal palace) - and his landlord Hugh Mason, it soon rose to prominence.

 

 

 

 

 

Among several claims to fame, it is said to have been the birthplace of the Scotch Egg, and to have been the first shop in England to sell the hitherto unheard of invention of a Mr Henry J. Heinz - tins of baked beans.

 

 

The front of the shop features a clock which - every hour on the hour - opens to reveal model figures of the two founders, who trundle out of their closets, nod to one another, then retire.

 

 

Which figure is which is not made clear - though judging by the candlestick held by the one on the right, I would hazard a guess that he's the erstwhile candle-thief.

 

Hatchard's

On the other side of the road is another venerable shop - this time a bookseller, named Hatchard's.

 

It is in fact the oldest bookshop in the UK, having opened in 1797 and holds three Royal Warrants. Though it is now owned by Waterstones, it still tries to portray an air of old world charm - it's the sort of place you can imagine a character from Dickens popping into of an afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's much more to see and do around Piccadilly Circus (though the tube stations are so close in this part of town that it all begins to overlap somewhat) but I have three more stations to visit today, and I must get on - so I head off to my next destination, Pimlico.

 

***
 

Pimlico

On paper (or on the map at least) Pimlico looks fairly dull. It's a mainly residential and vaguely triangular area, bounded to the south by the river, to the east by Vauxhall Bridge Road and to the west by the railway tracks spewing southwards out of Victoria station. The station is at one end of the main shopping street - Lupus Street - though even this is not much more than a branch of Tesco and a few fast food outlets.

But a little more digging unearths a few more interesting nuggets of information.

Firstly, of course, it is the subject of a classic Ealing Comedy film, 'Passport To Pimlico', in which a horde of treasure is discovered, together with a document proving that part of Pimlico is actually owned by the Duchy of Burgundy and is therefore no longer part of Great Britain (and thus no longer subject to post-war rationing). The local shopkeeper is appointed Prime Minister and there is a battle of wills between the 'new Burgundians' and the British government, with the former requiring tube travellers to present passports as they enter the area, and the latter cutting off power and water and surrounding the area with barbed wire.

Eventually - after much comic to-ing and fro-ing - the Burgundians agree to loan the British the treasure they have found, ending the dispute, and life returns to normal.

Pimlico station is on the Victoria Line, one of the (relatively) more recent additions to the network - this station being opened as late as 1972. There are newer stations obviously - on the Jubilee Extension and the DLR - but it still seems a little odd to think that this station is only as old as I am, when much of the rest of the network was built over a hundred years ago.

Since it is mostly residential, the strictly geographical area of Pimlico has little to see within it - but it does also happen to be the closest station (north of the river) to Vauxhall Bridge, across which is the Secret Intelligence Service Building at Vauxhall Cross, or in other words - the home of MI6, and therefore the place where James Bond works.

SIS Building

Of course, 007 is entirely fictional, but this hasn't stopped the makers of the Bond films making full use of the iconic building in their storylines - blowing it up on more than one occasion.

As I stand across the river from the MI6 headquarters, a speedboat crosses my field of vision sporting a paint-job which leaves me seriously wondering whether, after all, James Bond is as fictional as I had imagined.



'Do try not to break it this time, 007...'

It's perhaps more 'Roger Moore' than 'Daniel Craig' but still, you never know...

Further along the river to the east of the bridge is Tate Britain - an art museum specialising in British art, and holding works by (among others) JMW Turner, Constable, Blake and - currently - an exhibition of works by David Hockney.

Tate Britain

It is built on the site of the former Millbank Prison, and a marker post across the road tells me that it was from this prison that convicts were loaded onto ships bound for penal colonies in Australia.



Site of Transportation

In the trees on the riverbank, there's a collection of shoes.

Yes, I know - not a sentence you expect to write of an evening, but there you have it.

I don't think these ones are ripe yet...

The shoes are all very shabby, but whether this was the reason they were discarded, or whether it's some kind of surreal protest at the spies opposite ('sneakers' perhaps...?) I don't know.

It's an odd image on which to ponder as I head to my next station anyway.

***
Pinner is another of the 'Metro-Land' stations out to the north-west of London, and very pleasant it is too.

Pinner

There's a sense of very relaxed history about the place - as if it's saying 'Look, I've been here far longer than I care to remember and I'm not going anywhere soon, so let's all just settle back and enjoy the scenery ok?'

Church Street

And it has been here a long time - there's been a May Fair here since 1336 (at least), the church at the top of Church Street (St John The Baptist) was consecrated in 1321, and some of the buildings on both Church Street and the main High Street claim a vintage almost as good.

High Street

As it's lunch-time I settle myself in a coffee shop on - appropriately enough given today's date - Love Lane.

Love Lane

This is definitely one of those places where it's pleasant to just sit by a window with a coffee and watch the world go by.

It's reasonably affluent as an area, and to the north of the High Street are many private roads with neatly trimmed topiary and expensive cars in the driveway. Nevertheless it still has the kind of village-y feel you miss out on in the more central boroughs of London. I get the feeling that every time they wander along the High Street, the locals can pretty much guarantee bumping into half a dozen people they know.

Some of the locals - past as well as present - are fairly well known to the wider public. Sir Patrick Moore was born here; Isabella ('Mrs') Beeton, Michael Rosen, Leslie Bricusse, Ronnie Barker, Bob Holness, Barry Cryer and Neighbours theme song writer Tony Hatch have all lived here at one time or another.

Sadly, I can't spend as much time here as I'd like however, as my next and final stop is right across town - so reluctantly I drag myself back to the station and onwards.

***
And so on to Plaistow, the final stop of the day, which is both a place of some significance... and rather a disappointment...

Plaistow

It's significance lies in the fact that this station marks TWO-THIRDS of the way to completing my challenge. It's the 244th station I've visited out of the 367 on my list!

(And, yes, I know the maths is a bit off - but you can't visit 2/3 of a station, so I'm rounding the numbers down to keep it simple.)

It's taken me almost exactly three years to get to this point (rather longer than I anticipated when I set out...) and at this rate I should reach the final station some time in late summer 2018...

And the disappointment?

Well, I'm afraid it's simply that the place is such a dump...

At least the weather's ok...

I'm sure the locals find ways to amuse themselves... but for the casual visitor the tower-blocks, disused buildings, dilapidated shop-fronts and litter-strewn streets are hardly the most welcoming of sights.

I try to give the High Street a fair crack of the whip - but I'm afraid it simply can't compare with the one I've just come from in Pinner. (Well, it can compare - in the sense of 'being an awful lot worse than').

So, yes - a bit of a disappointment, but (numerically at least) still a significant milestone. And that's the barely positive thought I cling on to as I turn on my heels and make my way back to the station and start my long journey back home...