'Knock On Wood'

Day 99

 

Woodford - Woodgrange Park - Wood Green - Wood Lane

 

Well now...

 

All being well this is the penultimate day of my travels. There are just 6 stations left on my list, and I plan to visit at least three, and possibly four, of them today.

I've already completed every station on the Bakerloo, District, Jubilee, Metropolitan, Victoria and Waterloo & City Lines, and if everything goes to schedule, by the end of today I'll have ticked off the Central and Piccadilly, as well as the Overground, Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines.

Golly!

The first three stations I plan to visit today are all in the East or North-East of London, so are within a relatively easy journey of each other - this will hopefully leave me enough time this afternoon to fit in a fourth, which is in West London and on my way home. Which all sounds so practical and efficient that it's bound to go wrong somewhere along the way. We shall see...

***
The first station - Woodford - is the final station to visit on the Central Line. It's out East, and is the junction at which the trains on the main branch meet up with those that have veered off onto the Hainault Loop.

Woodford

The town of Woodford is a fairly typical example of this area. So much so in fact that when I first arrive I have to double check my alphabetical list of stations and make absolutely sure I haven't come here already by mistake.

The main reason for this strong sense of déjà vu is the fact that the station - in a manner that I've seen fairly recently - straddles one of the main streets through the town, with the shops either side of it seeming to have shuffled grudgingly along a bit to let it through.

Woodford shops on Snakes Lane West

I finally identify the other station which shares this lay-out  as this station's next-door neighbour - South Woodford. There - as here - the main exit from the station leads to a car-park, which in turn leads to the top end of the street, while the bottom end of the street is reached via a separate exit.

The street in question at South Woodford was called George Lane, while here it is the more curiously named Snakes Lane - an explanation for which I've been unable to find.

Next to the top end of Snakes Lane is a small green at the end of Charteris Road. The green is named after Sylvia Pankhurst, the leading Suffragette, who lived in Woodford for over 30 years and had a house at this site (as a plaque informs visitors) in the 1930s.

Pankhurst Green

Next to this sign - on the ground in front of it - is a mosaic identifying different leaf shapes, though I'm not sure whether the message "Where We Live", running round the circumference of the mosaic, refers to the people who made it, or to the leaves themselves.

Leaf Mosaic

As well as Sylvia Pankhurst, two other figures from the world of early 20th Century politics are connected to Woodford.

Firstly, Clement Attlee, labour Prime Minister from 1945-1951, lived here in the 20s and 30s, while he was MP for the London constituency of Limehouse.

He had moved away, however, by the time that his political rival, and opposite number, in the Conservative Party - Winston Churchill - became MP for the newly created Woodford constituency in 1945. Churchill went on to hold the seat until 1964, one year before his death.

Snakes Lane East

The town is a pleasant, if unexciting place, and after a brief stroll to the opposite side of the station to see Snakes Lane East, I decide to move on.

***

My next stop is Woodgrange Park, on the Overground Line on the stretch between Gospel Oak and Barking.

For me this means getting off the Central Line at Leytonstone and changing to the Overground Line at Leytonstone High Road.

Now that I'm very near the end of this journey of course, many places previously unknown to me have become a little more familiar, and I give a nod of recognition to the Alfred Hitchcock mosaics at Leytonstone station as I pass by.

Woodgrange Park

Woodgrange Park (like Woodford) is another 'final' station - there are no more Overground stations after this one. And (also like Woodford) I'm afraid it's going out more with a whimper than with a bang.

It's on the main Romford Road, in the Manor Park area of town, and there are several shops and a petrol station nearby. All of these are, however, a little shabby round the edges, and the area seems to be in need of a fair bit of TLC.

Romford Road

To the north of the station is a fairly unremarkable terraced street called Albany Road and about halfway along this - at number 25 - is a blue plaque commemorating it as the birthplace of the actor and comedian, Stanley Holloway.

Stanley Holloway's birthplace

Holloway (best known for his humorous monologues and appearances in the Ealing comedies) began his career as 'The Wonderful Boy Soprano' at the age of 14, while also working as a clerk in a boot polish factory. He would continue to perform right up until the year 1980, when he appeared in the Royal Variety Performance.

A twenty minute walk to the east of the station is a park called Little Ilford Park.

Despite its relative smallness, the term 'little' does not actually refer to the size of the park, but to the fact that the area surrounding it is called 'Little Ilford'. The area now known as Ilford (to the east of here) was originally called 'Great Ilford' and the two are divided by the North Circular Road which runs north to south between them.

Little Ilford Park

The park here is also said to be the inspiration for the Small Faces famous psychedelic pop song, Itchycoo Park. This was apparently the nickname of Little Ilford Park because of the preponderance of stinging nettles found there.

It's a pleasant spot to sit for a few minutes while I write up my notes on the day so far, but time is moving on, and I must be doing the same. So, I'm soon on my way again and heading back to the station.

***
My next stop is on the Piccadilly Line (and yes - it's the last one on that line I need to visit) so I take a slightly more convoluted route than I have thus far today - Overground to Blackhorse Road, Victoria to Finsbury Park, and then Piccadilly up to my destination at Wood Green.

Wood Green

Wood Green station is one that's already familiar to me, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's the station nearest to the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, which was one of the drama schools to which I applied many years ago when I first embarked on my career in theatre.

I'll come back to the school in a little while, when I visit its location, so more of that anon.

The second reason I'm familiar with the station is that it was at the nearby Wood Green police station that I spent a fun afternoon giving statements and identifying suspects following my encounter with the wrong end of a gun (albeit a replica one) way back towards the beginning of my travels in Bounds Green.

I'm naturally a little biased against the area therefore, and am mildly wary as I walk around, despite being on the busy High Road this time and not (as I was then) on an isolated stretch of canal-side towpath.

Wood Green High Road

However, I determine to give the place a chance.

The area gets its name from the fact that it was once part of the Tottenham Wood, and in fact was originally called Tottenham Wood Green.

A curiosity of the area is that none of its thoroughfares are 'Streets'. There are plenty of 'Roads', 'Avenues', 'Closes', 'Lanes' and even the odd 'Passage', 'Grove' and 'Mews', but not a single 'Street'.

Historically, Roads and Streets were different entities, of course, and while most people probably know that an Avenue was originally the main approach to a country house, lined with trees, you might not be aware of the difference between a Road and a Street.

Allow me to explain.

A Road is a thoroughfare between two distinct locations (towns, villages, cities and so on) which has been given a surface which allows vehicles to pass along it.

A Street, on the other hand, is a public thoroughfare within a single, built-up, area (i.e. within a town, village or city). It is usually paved, and is a place where people may move about on foot, as well as interact with one another.

Which is all very well, but completely useless as far as definitions go, since everybody seems to have thrown that particular rule-book out of the window. And it's not just a modern failing - the Anglo-Saxons called the roads built by the Romans names like 'Watling Street' and 'Ermine Street', despite the fact that they linked different towns and cities. Meanwhile, the Victorians cavalierly renamed what were obviously streets (being contained within in the City of London) as Roads - thus Gray's Inn Lane became Gray's Inn Road.

Anyway, be that as it may, I find myself on the High Road in Wood Green, which is not only where people are - in time honoured fashion - interacting with one another, but also where there are shops, restaurants, a multiplex cinema, and the imaginatively named 'The Mall' , which is a shopping mall.

I wander though this briefly, but it's more Primark than Marks and Spencer, so I don't linger long.

I grab a bit to eat at one of the usual coffee shops, and then head off to the west of the High Road, to have a quick look at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.

Mountview

Not that there's much to see here either. A few drama students (easily identifiable by the de rigeur black t-shirts and jogging bottoms) are hanging about outside, but most of them will be inside experiencing the joys of acting, movement, clown, mask and voice classes.

Drama Students

The last of these leads me to recall my own audition here back in early 2004.

In common with most aspiring actors, I had applied to many different drama schools, and was used to the format of presenting two contrasting audition speeches, and then participating in a 'sample' class of some kind laid on by the school.

At Mountview the class was voice based, and was an introduction to the differences in regional accents.

The voice tutor (whose name I'm afraid I can't recall) was an American (or possibly Canadian) chap, who asked each of us in turn to chat a little about ourselves - hobbies, favourite food, where we went on holiday, and so on - and would then proceed, with pinpoint accuracy, to identify which part of the country we came from, based on our accents.

Now, my accent has covered rather a lot of ground over the years, since I was born in Yorkshire, and in Sheffield - which has its own particular dialect - but moved to Reading in Berkshire (think Ricky Gervais) when I was 9. I then went to Grammar School, where the yokel edges were smoothed off my Reading accent, before studying languages in London, and beginning my acting life (as an amateur) in Ealing, where I settled in to what I considered myself to have developed a nicely neutral 'RP' - or standard English - accent.

At my parents house I would slip easily back into a tame version of a Yorkshire accent, while with friends in London it was the RP which came most easily from my voice-box.

Nevertheless, without a moment's pause the voice tutor picked up on the fact that I had spent some time in Reading - the accent I had used for the shortest period.

And accents and dialects have fascinated me (and been part of my particular skill-set) ever since.

But that's about it for Wood Green.

Thankfully my visit has been a more uneventful one this time round, and it has left me enough time to fit in one more station before the end of the day.

***

Wood Lane station, you may recall from my recent blog post, is just down the road from White City, and therefore shares all of the same local 'sights'.

Wood Lane

These include the former BBC Television Studios on Wood Lane itself, and the huge Westfield Shopping Centre just around the corner.

The only other thing in the area, and something I didn't look at last time, is the Loftus Road Stadium, which is to the west, and is the home of Queens Park Rangers football club.



Loftus Road

Having been originally (and not surprisingly) formed in the Queen's Park area of North West London, the team moved here in 1917, taking over from the amateur club Shepherd's Bush FC.

The stadium was the first in Britain to make use (in a thankfully short-lived experiment) of an entirely artificial playing surface called 'Omniturf', which was - apparently - not much fun to play on, particularly for the goalkeeper who was expected to dive onto it at regular intervals.

You'll know - if you've been following this blog with any regularity - that my interest in the world of football is approximately on a par with my interest in the statistical analysis of Party Political Broadcast viewing figures, so if you want to know more about QPR, I suggest you spend some time with Mr Google.

I will however mention the fact that the Loftus Road ground was used as the venue for a fundraising football match - with both professional footballers and celebrity players - to raise money for the victims of the nearby Grenfell Tower fire.

Played on the 2nd of September, the match has so far raised a total of over £20K and given a much needed morale boost to the displaced residents.

From the stadium I head back towards the station, but via a slight detour through the pleasant (if misnamed, being in Shepherd's Bush) Hammersmith Park.



Japanese Garden - Hammersmith Park

It's a small park, located on a former Japanese Garden which formed part of the Japan-British Exhibition held at the White City in 1910. The Japanese influence has been maintained, with an area of the park set aside for a modern version of a Japanese Garden with waterfalls, a stone bridge, and a 'dry' garden of rocks and gravel.



'Dry' Garden

And with that, another day is over.

Just one more day's travelling to complete, with just two more stations to visit.

Piece of cake......