'The Final Countdown'

Day 91

 

Walthamstow Central - Walthamstow Queen's Road - Wandsworth Road - Wanstead - Wanstead Park

 

Well, here we are then - the final letter of the alphabet (at least, as far as tube station names are concenred).

 

It's taken me a long time to get here - far longer than I anticipated - and there's still a pretty long way to go. Forty more stations in fact - the largest number of any letter on the tube map. How generous of TFL to give me the longest list of names right at the end of my journey...

 

***

I start this morning way up in the north-east corner of the tube map, at the top of the Victoria Line.

 

Walthamstow Central

 

Walthamstow Central is the first of two stations in Walthamstow, the other being just around the corner - an Overground station called Walthamstow Queen's Road. Since they're so close it seems to make sense to visit and photograph both stations first and then explore the area surrounding them and common to both.

 

At first I'm a little confused, as there seems to be an Overground station across the road also called Walthamstow Central, and I wonder whether this is the one I'm looking for. Have they changed the name without telling me? But this station is actually connected to the Victoria Line station via a subway and is one of the new additions to the map in recent years (which, as I have previously explained, I'm not counting as part of my journey, which is based on the December 2013 map).

 

Walthamstow Queen's Road is actually a short way beyond this new station and is tucked away in some back streets (though not, it seems, on the road after which it is named). To get to it you used to have to head south from the tube station down the main road - Hoe Street - and then west along one of the back streets, a walk of some 500 metres.

 

Ray Dudley Way

It seems that some people felt this was too inconvenient a distance to walk, and a pioneering local campaigner by the name of Ray Dudley was so persistent in asking the council to build a connecting footpath between the two stations that they eventually gave in and did so.

 

The resulting narrow walkway - which reduces the distance between the two stations to a much more manageable 300 metres  - now bears Ray's name, although the council were clearly a little miffed at being forced into doing the work, because they took revenge on poor Mr Dudley by sticking a couple of rubbish bins directly in front of the sign bearing his name.

 

 

 

 

The rewards of persistence... and the edge of the bins obscuring the accolade.

 

The station itself is not a particularly impressive affair.

 

Walthamstow Queen's Road

 

It was originally just called 'Walthamstow' (whereas Walthamstow Central, when it opened, was called 'Hoe Street' station) and since, as I have mentioned, it isn't actually on the 'Queen's Road' contained in its name, but some 250m north of this, you wonder why they changed the name at all.

 

I walk to Hoe Street - which is just an average high street, if perhaps a little down at heel.

 

Hoe Street

 

The name Walthamstow is, apparently, from the Old English 'Wilcumestowe', meaning 'place of welcome'. I'm not, I have to say, overwhelmed by an abundance of welcome when I arrive - merely the usual mixture of indifference and (as soon as people see my camera) suspicion.

 

However, since this reaction is fairly typical of London as a whole, I don't hold it against Walthamstow in particular for fitting in with the norm - I'm just disappointed it doesn't live up to its name.

 

This is perhaps exacerbated by the fact that the weather forecasters have predicted rain for today - following our recent heatwave - and lo and behold, the heavens open as I'm caught in the open on Hoe Street.

 

There is, however, a shopping centre ('The Mall') to the west of Walthamstow Central station, and I make a dash for its cover - hoping too that it might provide a few more interesting shops than Hoe Street does.

 

Sadly not.

 

There's a pound shop and a second hand electronics exchange shop, a discount fashion shop and a few shoe shops - useful for the locals perhaps but not much to tempt me. I opt for a quick coffee while the rain pours down outside.

 

It eases off after only a shot while, so I head out again and north of the centre to the imposing and impressive edifice that is the Town Hall.

 

Walthamstow Town Hall

 

The building was built in the 1930s and its art deco design was the work of one Philip Dalton Hepworth, who won a competition to design the new council headquarters.

 

There's something vaguely European about it, which seems somewhat out of place in the urban shabbiness that is the rest of Walthamstow - you could easily imagine yourself in Vienna or Berlin, were it not for the red double-deckers kicking up the spray behind me.

 

The rain keeps coming and going, and I think I've seen most, if not all, that Walthamstow has to offer, so I head back to the station, and to my next destination.

 

***

Wandsworth Road is another Overground station, this time to the south of London in North Clapham.

Wandsworth Road

The road from which it takes its name is a long one - starting in Vauxhall and ending at Lavender Hill, to the west of here. And even this is just one section of the much longer A3036, which starts at Westminster Bridge opposite the Houses of Parliament and continues until Wandsworth where it merges with the A3 to Portsmouth.

It's a shame therefore, that this particular stretch of it is rather dull.

I've already visited Clapham, to the south, and Stockwell, to the east, so I'm restricted in the area I can explore.

There is, curiously, one place of interest here, though you'd never know it from the outside, and would be quite justified in walking right past it without realising that it is, in fact, a National Trust property.

575 Wandsworth Road

Unlike many of their properties, which include stately homes, ruined abbeys and other such picturesque historical buildings, the property they look after here is a dilapidated looking terrace hidden away behind an overgrown garden.

Number 575 Wandsworth Road was the property of a Kenyan poet called Khadambi Asalache, who bought it in 1981 and lived there until his death in 2006.

Deciding that the house (which had previously been occupied by squatters) was in need of some redecoration, he spent his time there carving intricate fretwork panels from old doors and boxes, which he attached to pretty much every spare surface around the building.

When he died he left the house to the National Trust, who have undertaken some conservation work in order to maintain the building and its decorative woodwork.

Unfortunately you can only get inside the house by arranging a pre-booked tour, and these only run from Thursday to Sunday each week. Today being a Tuesday I'm out of luck, so I take a couple of photos of what I can see of the gloomy interior and the occasional glimpse of the intricate fretwork.

Taking DIY to a new level...

The National Trust website page for the property gives you a better idea of what you can see if you ever decide to pay the place a visit yourselves. For me though, there's nothing else to keep me in this part of town, so I head on once again.

***
And it's back to the north east of London - this time on the Central Line to Wanstead.

Wanstead

Wanstead is the first station on the Hainault (or Fairlop) Loop, and also (as far as I'm concerned) the last - since I've visited all of the others on that little stretch of the Central Line.

It's a Charles Holden design, but not - I would say - one of his more interesting ones, being just a simple square block.

High Street

There's an attractive High Street to the north of the station, the other end of which I explored when I visited Snaresbrook not so long ago. To the south of this is George Green - a fairly plain bit of open space with a few trees and an old water pump at one corner.

George Green Water Pump

Open space is a bit of a theme in the Wanstead area. Between here and my next stop - Wanstead Park station - to the south, there's pretty much little else other than huge swathes of open space - an area which goes by the name of the Wanstead Flats (which tells you something about what you can expect from the landscape).

This is the southernmost part of Epping Forest and covers over 300 acres, comprising mainly grassland.

Since my next stop is about 2km from Wanstead station - on the southern edge of the Flats - I decide to take a bus down to Wanstead Park station, which will allow me to get a good view of the scenery from the top deck as I travel past.

Wanstead Park

Despite its name, Wanstead Park station doesn't appear to be anywhere near the patch of ground called Wanstead Park at all. It's a little confusing, given the way all the greenery around here seems to merge together, but from what I can gather Wanstead Park is actually to the north-east of the Flats and - in the usual perverse way of such things - is actually much closer to Wanstead station than to Wanstead Park station.

From Wanstead Park Station it's a short walk to the south-westernmost tip of Wanstead Flats, and I take a brief stroll into the grasslands.

Wanstead Flats

They certainly live up to their name.

Being part of Epping Forest there are a fair few trees around, but the view is dominated by the vast empty space that stretches out ahead of you.

I'm sure the local canine population have a whale of a time bounding across the grassland, but my own interest fades after only a brief wander around the small corner of the Flats in which I find myself.

And so another day draws to a close, and the first five stations of the final forty have been ticked off my list. There really can't be that many days travelling left for me on this journey. What will I do with myself when it's all over.......?

'Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow'

Day 90

 

Uxbridge - Vauxhall - Victoria

 

So, having only just failed to complete the letter U last time, and with only two "Vs" to visit, today promises to be the day I cross off two letters of the alphabet in one fell swoop.

 

I start the day with a jaunt out west, to the final "U" - Uxbridge. It's the terminus of both the Piccadilly Line and Metropolitan Line (although both have other branches terminating elsewhere) and is another station designed by that old friend of ours - Charles Holden.

 

Uxbridge

 

Not that you'd immediately spot this fact, or indeed (without the give-away blue signage) that the station is actually a station at all.

 

The entrance is tucked into the middle of a crescent-shaped façade of shop fronts, and if it weren't for the ornate scrolls on the top of the building and the blue Underground sign over the doorway, you be forgiven for assuming it was the entrance to the public lavatories or something.

 

Inside the station is another minor oddity - time in the form of some stained glass windows designed by the late Hungarian artist, Ervin Bossányi (1891-1975), who - among other places - also made stained glass for York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, the Tate Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

 

Stained Glass in the station

 

Immediately outside the station is a sculpture by Anita Lafford called 'Anticipation'. It was unveiled by the Queen when she visited in 2002 for her Golden Jubilee, and presumably the anticipation in question is that of waiting to see Her Majesty - rather than being dragged around M&S with your mum yet again...

 

"Anticipation"

 

Plaque on the sculpture

 

Beyond the sculpture the station opens out onto a pedestrianised High Street that runs north to south and has two large shopping centres on it, as well as a variety of other outlets.

 

It's a strange mix of the old and new, with ancient-looking buildings nestling between the gleaming glass and steel of modern office blocks and shopping centres.

 

The place has certainly seen some history - most notably the (failed) attempt to reach an agreement between the Royalists and Parliamentarians in the English Civil War in 1645. Uxbridge lay between the King's stronghold in Oxford and the Roundheads' base in London, and the venue for the meeting was The Crown (now The Crown and Treaty) pub just north of the town centre.

 

Crown & Treaty Pub

 

The pub is just by the Grand Union Canal and I spend a pleasant few minutes walking along the towpath. Again the quaintly painted narrow-boats are reminiscent of the past, while behind them the modern world intrudes in the shape of business parks and air-conditioned offices.

 

Grand Union Canal

 

Strolling back southwards through the town the mixture of old and new is quite striking.

 

High Street - and St. Margaret's Church

 

The church just off the High Street is St. Margaret's (the original parish church) which has been here since at least 1245..... It's now tucked away behind one of the High Street's many coffee shops.

 

Other old buildings are now given over to restaurant chains or accountancy firms and have become little more than picturesque façades.

 

Ye Olde Zizzi

 

Having therefore exhausted the charms of Uxbridge's High Street, I cross the final "U" off my list and head once more into central London to the first of the "Vs".

 

***

Both Vauxhall and the second (and last) "V" station, Victoria, are on the Victoria Line and are only two stops apart - separated by Pimlico.

 

Vauxhall

 

Vauxhall is not - as you may have supposed - named after a Luton-based car manufacturer, but instead gets its name from a certain Falkes (or Fawkes) de Breauté - a high ranking soldier who served King John in the 13th Century.

 

His home in this part of London was called Fawkes Hall, which later became corrupted to Vauxhall.

 

In fact, the car company was originally founded in this part of town, so gets its name from the area - rather than the other way round - and its Griffin logo comes from the heraldic device of the aforementioned de Breauté.

 

The word 'Vauxhall' has also, for some strange reason, been adopted by the Russian language as the standard word for a train station - "Вокза́л" (pronounced "Vokzal"). There are various suggestions as to why this might be, the simplest being that some visiting Russians saw the word above the station entrance and assumed it was the generic term, rather than the specific name of this station.

 

On the other hand, the word is also used in Russian to mean a 'pleasure garden' and Vauxhall Pleasure Garden is just around the corner from here (as we shall shortly see) so it may have come from that first.

 

Either way, the connection with Russia is in many ways ironic, since the major landmark in the area is the huge building known as Vauxhall Cross - or the headquarters of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service.

 

SIS HQ

 

I first showed you this building from across the river, when I visited Pimlico, but it's equally distinctive from what is (presumably) its front entrance on Albert Embankment. Which is odd, when you come to think about it, because surely such a secret organisation would be trying very hard not to be distinctive. However, given the number of movies the building has now appeared in, that doesn't seem to bother them all that much.

 

Around the corner are the aforementioned Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens - one of two main parks in this area.

 

Entrance to the gardens

 

The sign at the entrance informs me that the gardens were first laid out in 1661 and were a popular place to dine, listen to music and see the visual arts, as well as to be seen yourself.

 

Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens today

 

To be honest, these days it doesn't look all that much to write home about - it's a large open space, with a few trees lining the paths, and some hanging baskets on the lamp-posts. None of the ornately decorated buildings you can see in the historic pictures on the sign above. It seems modern life has eroded the historical landscape as much here as it has in Uxbridge.

 

There's also, to one side of the park, a city farm.

 

City Farm

 

This too is rather uninspiring, certainly compared with the one I saw not too long ago at Stepney Green. There seem to be only a few donkeys mooching about in a couple of the fields outside the main building (which looks like a former church) and the rest of the fields are empty.

 

 

Columns at the
park entrance

 

 

 

 

I leave the park, mildly disappointed, and head to the other park which is to the south of this one - pausing only to take a photo of the two 18m high columns which mark the entrance to the pleasure gardens and which, frankly, are the most impressive thing about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second park in Vauxhall is called (wait for it...) Vauxhall Park.

 

Vauxhall Park

 

This too is just your basic bit of greenery - though with rather more trees than the Pleasure Gardens - and with an unusual little collection of model houses in one corner.

 

Model Houses

 

These were the work of one Edgar Wilson of Norwood in 1949, who seemed to make a habit of modelling little houses. Another set of his works can be found in (of all places) Melbourne, Australia.

 

Information on the models

 

It's all a bit twee and a bit odd. Apparently Mr Wilson made many sets of such houses, but only the ones here and in Melbourne survive. Were the others vandalised? Lost in transit? Or did developers move in and build a model office block on top of them? Who knows...

 

I head back to Vauxhall station to head north to Victoria, but before I leave I take a wider-view photo of the station to include the bus depot that sits above the underground station, and the two enormous solar panels that jut upwards from this.

 

Vauxhall Bus Depot

 

They provide a large part of the electricity for the bus depot, which is admirable - but I have to say that to me the whole thing resembles a pair of chopsticks resting in a bowl of Chinese food...

 

***

And finally, just a couple of stops along the Victoria Line, I reach the station of the same name.

 

Victoria

 

In fact the station, the street it's on and the whole surrounding area are all of course named after Queen Victoria.

 

Unlike many of the places I've visited, there are actually quite a few points of interest within the station itself, rather than in the wider area (though there are those too).

 

Firstly the station is not just an underground station but also a Main Line Railway Station, opened in 1860 to provide a terminus north of the river Thames for services from the south of the country. Previously these had stopped south of the river.

 

Then there's the fact that Victoria Station is the London Terminus of the world famous Orient Express train. It leaves here (apparently) from Platform 2 - though there's no sign of it while I'm here.

 

Plaque to
The Unknown Warrior

Finally, just around the corner from another platform - number 8 - is a plaque commemorating a very special (and final) journey taken by one traveller following the end of the First World War.

 

 

The 'Unknown Warrior' is buried in Westminster Abbey "amongst the kings" to represent the thousands of British soldiers killed in the first war.

 

 

It was the idea of an army chaplain - the Rev. David Railton - who had served at the front and seen a grave marked in pencil with the phrase 'an unknown British soldier'. The plan met with the support of the Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the soldier - selected at random - was brought to England via Dover.

 

 

The train carrying the coffin arrived at Victoria on the 10th November 1920 and remained there overnight before the coffin was taken to Westminster Abbey for burial the following day.

 

Victoria lines...

 

In the station concourse the floor is covered with a network of coloured lines - reminiscent of the tube map - which are actually easily followed directions to the various areas of the station. This is a great idea - far easier than trying to locate the elusive overhead signs you normally get, which invariably lead you in one direction, before another sign points you down a completely contradictory path. I don't know why Victoria is the only station to have this system, but I'd love to see it adopted elsewhere. 

 

The underground part of Victoria Station is - in fact - two connected stations built over 100 years apart. The District and Circle Line station first opened in 1868, while the Victoria Line section opened in 1969.

 

Outside the station the area is largely taken up with gleaming office blocks - though even among these temples of modernity there are one or two historical curiosities.

 

For instance, in front of the Victoria Palace Theatre (currently being refurbished behind huge screens) is this diminutive version of one of London's most famous landmarks.

 

Little Ben

"Little Ben" was erected in 1892, taken down for an extended period of restoration in the 60s, and finally replaced here in 1981.


The restoration was undertaken with sponsorship from a French Oil Company - ELF Aquitaine - "as a gesture of Franco-British friendship", and the hands of the clock are set permanently for Daylight Saving (British Summer) Time, which means that during the winter months the time is correct for France, while in summer it is correct for the UK.

History of Little Ben
 

A little rhyme on the front of the clock offers an "apology for summer time":

"My hands you may retard or may advance
My heart beats true for England as for France"

The clock was once again removed and restored between 2012 and 2016, while work was also being undertaken at Victoria Station.

Around the corner from both the station and Little Ben is another example of a more historic building struggling to avoid being crowded out by all the gleaming modern offices.

Westminster Cathedral

This is Westminster Cathedral - not to be confused with Westminster Abbey (where our friend the Unknown Warrior found his final resting place - and where Kings, Queens and other luminaries have been married, crowned and interred for centuries) - that's to the east of here and I'll be visiting it when I visit Westminster station in the near future.

Westminster Cathedral is the main Catholic Cathedral in England and Wales (whereas the Abbey is a Church of England edifice). It was built at the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries, opening in 1903, and was designed by the architect John Francis Bentley in the Byzantine style of the east, centred around Constantinople.



The building is striking with its striped brickwork and ornate mosaics - both inside and out.

Front Entrance



Looking inside

In front of the cathedral is a large paved square with tables and chairs dotted around, at which - it seems - the local office-workers take their lunchtime breaks.



I don't join them - my day is done and I'm happy to leave this concrete and glass jungle and head back home.





There's a more modern entrance to the tube station nearby which seems, for some unfathomable reason, to have been covered in Braille.

The new entrance, with its hidden message...

I have no idea what the outside of the building is telling me, nor indeed how anyone is supposed to read it, since many of the panels are higher than most people can reach.

Of course, this means I can give my imagination free reign and assume that it says something very rude about all the tourists passing obliviously by. Of course, it could equally be an injunction to 'pick up litter' or 'mind the gap' - who knows...

In any case, leaving yet another clashing mixture of ancient history and modern commerce behind me, I head home at the end of a very successful day. I've crossed off two letters of the alphabet, and am - or will be next time - very firmly in the home straight! Woo-hoo!

'U Can't Touch This'

Day 89

 

Upminster - Upminster Bridge - Upney - Upper Holloway - Upton Park

 

We've been having something of a heatwave across the country for the last few days, and despite the sky being a little hazier when I first set off this morning, today promises to be as stiflingly hot and sticky on the tube as ever.

And I'm going to be pushing myself today as I'd really like to get all the U stations done on one go if at all possible.

On paper at least it doesn't look too bad - with four out of the six stations being gathered in reasonably close proximity at the eastern end of the District Line.

The fourth and sixth stations, however, are less conveniently placed - particularly the latter, as it's about as far across town from the eastern end of the District Line as it's possible to go. Still - it's worth a shot, and would be a neatly packaged day of (admittedly uncomfortable) travelling if I pull it off.

I start then, with an hour and a half's journey from the western end of the District Line (Ealing Broadway) to the eastern end - Upminster.

Upminster

Both this station, and its next door neighbour Upminster Bridge are in the once rural area known as Upminster, which is centred around the River Ingrebourne - a tributary of the Thames.

Station Road

There are a few shops on the street south of the station - Station Road - which leads to a crossroads , on the corner of which is the Church of St. Laurence.

Church of St Laurence

Although it has mostly been rebuilt, parts of the tower date back to the original 13th Century building, and it is the tower that is the most significant part of this particular church - for reasons more connected to science than religion.

It was from the top of this tower in 1709 that the Reverend William Derham, rector of Upminster, first accurately measured the speed of sound.

The good reverend climbed to the top of the tower, and used a telescope to observe a shotgun being fired off in the distance. Using a half-second pendulum he then recorded the time it took for him to hear the sound of the shot, and from that was able to calculate the speed of sound.

These days the top of the tower barely manages to overlook the nearby trees, so one assumes that the land surrounding the church was considerably flatter in the early 18th Century...

Heading west from the church I walk towards the next local landmark, the nature of which - if I tell you it is located in Windmill Field - you may be able to guess.

A sign welcomes me to Windmill Field with a smattering of history concerning the windmill itself, and a couple of photographs of the mill in all its glory.

Upminster Windmill Background Info

Which is just as well, since I'm not actually going to be able to see the real thing.

The Windmill - under wraps

It's currently completely covered in plastic sheeting (making it look like it's about to be sent somewhere via courier) which indicates that a massive refurbishment project is underway. So all I can do is look at the pictures on the sign, and carry on along the street towards Upminster Bridge.

Not surprisingly, the station is named after a crossing over the local river - the Ingrebourne. However, at this point along its length this is little more than an overgrown and rather unexciting stream tucked away behind long runs of fencing, and the bridge over it is so inconspicuous as to be easily missed, even when standing on it.

River Ingrebourne

The station itself is a little quirky, for a couple of reasons.

Upminster Bridge

Firstly, the ticket hall is octagonal in shape, and art deco in design, reflecting its age - having been built in the early 1930s.

More striking, however, is the large swastika emblem in the entrance hall.

"Wellbeing and good fortune" - or fascist hate? 

Now, I'm sure most people are aware that the swastika began life as a Hindu symbol meaning "well-being and good fortune", and that it was appropriated by the Nazis who have given it a bad name it hardly deserves.

Nevertheless, it was (and sadly still is) such a potent symbol of the fascist movement that it is a little disconcerting to see it so prominently displayed on a public building.

I've been unable to discover the exact reason for its inclusion in the station design. Some sources claim that the swastika was 'a popular design' at the time - but this was in December 1934, by which time Hitler was Chancellor of Germany and the swastika had already been flying on Nazi flags for several years at the Nuremberg Rallies.

Looking back from our modern point of view it seems hardly possible for the swastika's Nazi symbolism to have escaped the notice of those who designed the station - but perhaps it was, at that point, just another design element. After all, just because a bit of stonemasonry features a Cross or a Star, it doesn't mean the building is showing inherent support for, say, Switzerland or China...

With nothing else in the area to divert me, and with the clock ticking, I catch the tube from Upminster Bridge and head back along the District Line a few stops, to Upney.

***
Upney Station is on Upney Lane, and is now in the district of Barking, though it was once an area in its own right. Barking Hospital, next to the station, was once Upney Hospital and there is still an Upney Baptist Church to the north of the station.

Upney

The streets consist mainly of unremarkable council houses, built in the 1930s, and at first glance you would be forgiven for thinking there's nothing here of any real interest.

But tucked away behind the rows of semi-detached houses, to the south of the station, is a somewhat surprising find.

Eastbury Manor

It's called Eastbury Manor House, and is an Elizabethan property now owned by the National Trust. Built in about 1573, the house retains many of the original features, including exposed timbers, lead drainage and interior wall paintings.

Architectural Info

There doesn't seem to be any sign of life from within the building as I wander around the neat gardens outside, and looking through the downstairs windows all I can see is bare empty rooms - nothing especially ornate. It's all a bit of a disappointment - much like the shrink-wrapped windmill in Upminster - and after only a few minutes taking photos of the exterior, I leave Eastbury Manor and head back to the station.

***
After a single stop's journey to Barking, I change from the District Line to the Overground Line to travel to my next destination - Upper Holloway.

This is a (relatively) short stretch of the Overground network between Barking and Gospel Oak, and trains run only every 15 minutes, so I have a bit of a wait before continuing my journey. Similarly the train seems to be running at a slower than usual speed on this stretch of the line, so by the time I arrive at Upper Holloway nearly an hour has passed. Not very good as far as my intended schedule is concerned as I still have two more stations I'd like to visit after this one.

Upper Holloway

The station is on Holloway road, in the area known as Holloway (unlike Upney - the station and the area still share the same name). This is within the Borough of Islington, and I had therefore expected it to be rather gentrified, but in fact this isn't (yet) the case.

There are various shops and cafés along Holloway Road, but these are nothing much to write home about, being mainly beauty parlours, newsagents and coffee shops, with the occasional estate agent thrown in.

To the south of the station are a couple of points of interest, however, the first of which is pretty hard to miss.

Dick Whittington's Cat



Info about the cat sculpture

The large floral sculpture of a superior looking cat (is there any other kind?) sits at the entrance to Whittington Park - and astute readers will have no trouble putting two and two together and realising that this is all in some way connected to the legend of Dick Whittington - London's most famous Lord Mayor.

If any more clues were needed, a couple of hundred metres to the north of Upper Holloway station is Highgate Hill, where there's a Whittington Hospital and a stone called the Whittington Stone, which is said to mark the point where Dick Whittington heard the sound of Bow Bells, which - unlikely as it seems - 'spoke' to him saying "Turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London..."





Inside the park

I wander into the park - but again, it's nothing special. A few bits of exercise equipment and a kids' playground are slightly dwarfed by the large fenced-off football pitch which takes up the northern half of the park. What little green space there is left over is - today - full of mums and toddlers.

Not sure how many of those landmarks were actually there at the time...

A little further south again, opposite a colourful (if historically and architecturally inaccurate) mural featuring the aforementioned Mr. Whittington, is a small, unregarded side street called Kingsdown Road.


 


Along this, at a distance of roughly 92 metres, is an utterly insignificant little blue terraced house, whose erstwhile ape-descended inhabitant was a man called Douglas Adams - who, while living here, wrote a novel called the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.


It had already been a successful radio series, and would later go on to be a TV series, a stage show, a film, a video game and a series of comics, but it was at number 19, Kingsdown Road that the radio script-writer became the novelist.



That does seem to be it for the area though, so having stopped for a bite to eat, I head back to the station once more.

***
And once again I have a long wait for the train to take me back to Barking, and the District Line to my next stop - Upton Park.



Upton Park

So much so that even before I begin exploring this area, I realise that I'm not going to achieve my hoped-for objective of visiting all the U stations in one day. It's already 3pm, and right now I'm very much in East London, while my next - and last - "U" is in Uxbridge, which is not only the western terminus of both the Piccadilly and Metropolitan Lines but also quite possibly the most westerly town in Greater London.

It will take me a good hour and a half to get there, even if I don't spend that long here, and then there's the time I need to have a look around...

So, reluctantly, I decide to end my day's travelling here at Upton Park.

And, sadly, it's not the most salubrious of areas at which to round off the day.

The street outside the station is Green Street, though only by name, as the buildings are very much brick and concrete. It's a shopping street, with many of the businesses reflecting the largely Muslim community that lives here.

The station itself was - unusually - built by property developers in 1877 to serve the housing development they had built nearby. 'Upton' was a nearby village, and the developers added the word 'Park' to give it more of an appealing gentility. The name was gradually adopted by the surrounding area.

Just to the south of the station is a large covered market - Queen's Market - originally a street market run by Jewish stall-holders, and now the usual collection of clothing and household goods.

Queen's Market

At the bottom of Green Street I turn eastwards and head a short way along Barking Road.

I've noticed a shop marked on the map that seems oddly out of place here for some reason, though it certainly seems popular when I arrive outside its door.

The WHO Shop

The 'WHO' Shop is nothing to do with the World Health Organisation, but is actually an emporium selling all things related to the TV show 'Doctor Who'.

Everything from Sonic Screwdriver Earrings to Cybermen Christmas Baubles

Quite why such an establishment should have settled way out here in East London, as opposed to - say - the seemingly more lucrative Covent Garden area is something only the owners can explain. Nevertheless, there are a handful of German students taking photos of the exterior when I arrive, and several more inside browsing the impressive collection of props, memorabilia and - let's face it - nerdy tat, that form the shop's merchandise.

World Cup Sculpture
'The Champions'

Retracing my steps from the WHO shop to Green Street, I pass a sculpture of several football players at the junction of the two roads - Barking Road and Green Street - the reason for which will soon become clear...

Green Street also marks the boundary between the areas known as West Ham and East Ham - and West Ham football club played for many years at a ground just off this street called - officially - the Boleyn Ground (after the house which formerly stood there - at which Anne Boleyn is said to have stayed). Unofficially the ground was known simply as Upton Park.

Three of the players in the 1966 World Cup winning England squad - Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters - all played for West Ham (the fourth figure in the sculpture is Ray Wilson, who was in the photograph on which the sculpture is based).

Following the Olympics in 2012, West Ham have moved into the former Olympic Stadium, as I noted when I visited Stratford a little while ago.

A quick look at the map will show you that their original ground was actually in East rather than West Ham, so the move to Stratford (which is in the West Ham area) does at least mean their name makes sense again.

Their former home is, however, not long for this world.

The last remaining turret...

As I pass by I can see the demolition crew hard at work and there is very little of the original structure left. It is now - appropriately enough perhaps for this area - in the hands of property developers, who are going to be building new homes and leisure facilities on the site.

And that's all I manage to fit in today.

It's a little disappointing not have finished off the letter, and a tad galling to have to head out again for just one more "U". On the other hand - since there are only two "Vs" in total - I'm going to take the unusual (for me) step of covering two letters in one journey.

Which means that, all being well, next time out I'll be crossing two letters off my list in one go - which can't be bad going!

Ta-ta till then!