'Station To Station'

Day 54

 

King's Cross St. Pancras - King George V - Knightsbridge

 

Bit of a Royal variety performance today, with no less than two Kings and a Knight in the names of the three stations I'm visiting.

 

I say three, but as you've no doubt noticed, the first station's name is actually a compound of the two National Rail stations above ground which it jointly serves - King's Cross, and St. Pancras. While, technically two separate stations, these are so close (separated by just one road) that the underground station is able to link them below ground.

Nevertheless, with two major rail terminals, and several other landmarks nearby, there's plenty to occupy me as I start my day - so get ready for a longer than usual post...

***

 

King's Cross St. Pancras

 

Since it links two major rail stations, one of which also happens to be the London terminus of the Eurostar train to France and Belgium, the tube station is naturally very busy. In fact in 2014 it was the second busiest in London after Oxford Circus, (which seems a little surprising given that it serves no less than six tube lines, compared with just three at Oxford Circus).

 

Given the number of people using the station, it's perhaps not surprising that in 1987 a severe fire on one of the escalators here caused the deaths of 31 people and injury to a hundred others. What is surprising - especially once the results of the enquiry into the causes of the fire were published - is that more people weren't killed.

 

There were several factors which contributed to the start, and spread, of the fire - some of them to do with physics, but others (as is ever the case) to do with cost-cutting, complacency and of course, selfishness.

 

Firstly - despite smoking having been banned on the Underground network since 1985, there were many passengers who felt that this rule simply didn't apply to them, or only applied to smoking on trains and not in the stations. So smokers would regularly light-up on their way up the escalators. One such smoker then casually dropped the match they had used onto the wooden escalator beneath their feet.

 

The escalator being wooden wouldn't necessarily have been a problem, but for the fact that there was so much accumulated grease and other detritus caught in the various nooks and crannies of the escalator that the match found ready fuel to burn. Unfortunately this was in the cavity beneath the steps of the escalator, so wasn't easily accessible to firefighters.

 

Even so, it might have been controllable (witnesses describe the initial fire as being the size of a 'cardboard box') had it not been for a couple of other factors working together.

 

The first was a combination of poor decisions made by London Underground. Not only were they complacent about the risks of fire on the network (since there had never, apparently, been a major fire before) but they had also made one other fatal error. Rather than remove old paint, and replace it with new, they had allowed twenty years' worth of paint to build up on the ceiling over the burning escalator and ticket hall - and it's this which made things a lot worse.

 

Now, this might get a little technical but bear with me as I try to explain some rather complicated principles of fire dynamics.

 

You may have heard of the term 'Flash Over' which occurs when an item (say a piece of furniture in a room) contains material that releases gases when burnt. the gases accumulate as they are confined by the walls and ceiling, and eventually heat up to an extent that they self-combust - becoming an instant ball of flame far larger than the initial fire that released them.

 

In the case of the King's Cross fire, it was the old paint that gave off the gases.

 

Unfortunately, two more effects then came into play, one called the Coandă effect (you can see a demonstration here) and the other (completely unknown prior to this fire) called the Trench Effect.

 

The Coandă effect caused the initial flames on the escalator to 'cling' to the floor and walls of the escalator 'trench'. This meant that the fire was insulated and concentrated and therefore got hotter and hotter.

 

The Trench Effect occurs when this behaviour takes place on an inclined surface (such as an enclosed escalator). The flames clinging to the surface thanks to the Coandă effect heat the material further up the incline (such as the old paint) which release gases and eventually burst into flame in a Flash Over.

 

The result at King's Cross was a sudden jet of flame shooting out from the top of the escalator into the crowded ticket hall.

 

As a result of the enquiry into the fire, there are now no more wooden escalators on the Underground, and their metal replacements are fitted with heat-sensors and sprinkler systems. Staff are also better trained to recognise and deal with emergency situations.

 

Smoking is of course still banned everywhere on the network (though somehow, knowing human nature, I suspect there are still people who choose to ignore this inconvenient fact...)

 

***

Above ground I begin my investigation of the two rail stations with King's Cross.

 

Named after the local area, which was in turn named after a monument (apparently unpopular) to King George IV (definitely unpopular), this is the station from which trains head north-east to Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire, Tyneside and ultimately, Scotland.

 

The 'The Flying Scotsman' (which has had various incarnations, but which is best known from its steam engine days) has connected this station with Edinburgh since 1862 - though the journey these days takes less than half of its original 10½ hours.

 

The modern station has been extensively refurbished, and the new concourse was opened in 2012. It's all very swish and gleaming white and there are coffee shops and eateries aplenty.

 

King's Cross concourse roof

In recent years, thanks to the fame of a certain bespectacled boy-wizard called Harry Potter, the station has also become known as the departure point for the 'Hogwarts Express' - which leaves every September from the fictional Platform 9¾.

 

Never ones to miss a marketing trick, the merchandisers of Warner Bros. have set up shop (literally) at one end of the concourse next to a handy section of brick wall, which now bears the legend 'Platform 9¾' and comes complete with semi-embedded luggage trolley. The queue to have your picture taken passing through the 'magic portal' to the platform is very long, and largely composed of twenty-something student types. The few children I see in the queue seem rather bemused by it all, as if it's their parents who really wanted to be here...

 

Oh grow up...

Time to move next door I think.

 

***

St. Pancras (or St. Pancras International as it is now called) is these days most well known as the UK end of the Eurostar journey, but also serves the East Midland line to Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield.

 

The station, and the area around it are named after a 14 year old boy saint - a Roman who converted to Christianity and was killed by the Emperor Diocletian sometime around 300 AD. It therefore has nothing whatsoever to do with internal bodily organs.

 

I'll repeat that:

 

NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH INTERNAL BODILY ORGANS!!! GOT IT?!?

 

Despite this, many people still insist on mispronouncing the name as 'St. Pancreas', and it may have been this which in 2014 prompted the station's PR team to commission a report on commonly mispronounced words. (Other contenders were 'EXpresso' for 'Espresso', 'ECKcetera' for 'Etcetera' and, most bizarrely to my mind, 'SherBERR' for Sherbert'.)

The exterior of the station is dominated by the impressive Victorian gothic architecture of the former Midland Grand Hotel - now given a new lease of life as the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, following a major refurbishment.

Renaissance Hotel

St. Pancras Entrance

The original hotel, designed by George Gilbert Scott, was opened in 1873 but closed in 1935. Thereafter it was used as offices for several years until it was deemed structurally unsafe and closed in the 1980s. It remained unused, despite being made safe in the 1990s, until the early 2000s when it was redeveloped and the new hotel opened in 2011.

Celebrity Chef and professional mardy-bum Marcus Wareing runs the 'Gilbert Scott' restaurant in the former limestone pillared 'Coffee Room', and a room in the hotel will set you back a minimum of £299 per night.

Back in the station the Eurostar trains wait behind their security barriers and toughened glass walls, while heavily armed police (a phrase which always sounds a jarring note in this country of village bobbies and Dixon of Dock Green) monitor the hundreds of people milling about on the concourse.

 

I haven't really been listening to the announcements coming over the tannoy, so the inordinately long queues and frustrated looks on everybody's faces largely go unnoticed. It's only when I get home later that I hear of the three bombs which have detonated in Brussels, killing 32 people. Not surprisingly, the Eurostar services to Belgium have therefore been suspended and once more we in Europe are shocked, saddened but also, I hope, strengthened and brought closer together by another terror attack.

 

In a few months time this country will be given the choice of whether or not to remain in the European Union. There are those that will use these attacks and others like them to seek to justify a 'pull up the drawbridge' approach to Europe.

 

My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that neither we as British citizens, nor we as Europeans, nor even we as members of the human race, can ever really be free of terrorism and the motivations for terrorism, until we can forget our petty differences and see ourselves as part of one global community rather than a disparate group of individuals.

 

It's unlikely this 'Utopia' will be seen in my lifetime, or for several generations to come, and maybe it will take our blowing ourselves up in some global apocalypse for us to realise our idiocy. But if being part of the EU gets us even a few steps closer to having a less selfish world view, then I'm all for it.

 

*** 

On the upper level of the concourse, above the shops and cafés, are a couple of sculptures.

 

The Meeting Place

The first, called 'The Meeting Place' by artist Paul Day, is a 30ft high statue of two people embracing. I can see the (rather bland) thought processes behind the choice of subject, but agree with the comments of Antony Gormley who cited this piece, among others, when he stated that there was 'an awful lot of crap out there'.

 

 

 

It has a base around which runs a frieze depicting various tableaux, including one that seems very familiar to anyone who is also a fan of the graffiti artist 'Banksy'.

 

 

 

Look familiar...?

 

 

 

The frieze was added to the sculpture in 2008, long before Banksy's image of two lovers each distracted by their mobile phones appeared on the wall of a youth club in Bristol, but the similarity is striking, and some might think, suggestive. Can one sue an anonymous artist for copyright infringement...?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sir John Betjeman

The second sculpture, somewhat shorter at 6ft 7in, is of the former Poet Laureate, John Betjeman who was an admirer of the station's architecture and who was a campaigner against the proposed closing of St Pancras station.

 

He is depicted staring admiringly up at the roof of the station, and stands on a slate disc on which are written some of his lines of poetry:

 

And in the shadowless unclouded glare / Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where / A misty sea-line meets the wash of air.

('Cornish Cliffs')

 

 

 

 

***

I leave the station and head back out past the gothic frontage, heading slightly further west. Here stands the British Library, which is (as the name suggests) the national library of the United Kingdom. Not only does it contain over 150 million items from around the world, some of which are over 3000 years old, but it is also legally required to receive a copy of every single publication produced in the UK - not just books, but magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, sheet music, maps and patents.

 

British Library

 

So, presumably, alongside the Magna Carta, Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Beatles Manuscripts and first edition of The Times, there are also shelves containing copies of the Beano, News Of The World, Practical Pig Rearing, or for the more adventurous, some rather less salubrious publications...

 

'Newton' statue and
entrance to the library

 

 

 

 

Outside is a pleasant courtyard with seating and a café and yet more sculpture (supposedly Isaac Newton, though not as you'd recognise him).

 

But I haven't time to sit and relax - there's lots more to see, and I'm still technically on my first station of the day. This is going to be a long post folks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

Heading north between St. Pancras and the British Library, up Midland Road and onto Pancras Road, I find the church which gives the St. Pancras area its name.

St. Pancras Old Church

Although supposedly one of he oldest places of Christian worship in the country, and despite its name, 'St. Pancras Old Church' as it now appears is actually largely a Victorian edifice, having been rebuilt on a number of occasions. Prior to the Victorian building, a Tudor one stood here, and the notice on the front gates has a possible original date of the early 4th Century AD, although 625 AD is the date on an inscribed altar stone that was found here during excavations.

A bit of info...

I don't go into the church itself, but I do spend a little time strolling through the peaceful grounds, where among other curiosities is a mausoleum designed by the architect Sir John Soane for himself and his wife.

Soane Mausoleum
(photo copyright Brian Harrington Spier)

Another architect, Giles Gilbert Scott (son of the aforementioned George, who designed the station and hotel) was inspired by this mausoleum when he was designing what was to become one of London's most famous icons - the once ubiquitous Red Telephone Box.

***
Just around another corner from the church, across the railway lines to the north of the station, is Camley Street, where I find the Camley Street Natural Park.

Camley Street Natural Park

This is another of those little corners of London devoted to the preservation and encouragement of wildlife, which I so often seem to find located in the most unlikely of places - next to railway lines, on a former ironworks, in the shadow of a football stadium...

It seems Jeff Goldblum was right; 'Life, uh... finds a way.'

'Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers,
painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is'

***
And so, finally, I leave the area around the two stations served by King's Cross St. Pancras tube station, and make my way to my next destination - King George V DLR station.

King George V

The station is on the Woolwich (Arsenal) branch, between City Airport and the terminus.

And that's pretty much all there is to say about it really. It is, sadly, one of those pockets of East London for which the words 'ghost town' might have been invented. A few run-down shops, a dismal smattering of loafers smoking joints on street corners, a pit-bull taking a dump in the middle of the road... these are the welcoming sights which greet me as I head south from the station to the only real point of interest here - the northern terminus of the Woolwich Ferry.

Woolwich Ferry

The ferry connects North Woolwich, where I am today, with Woolwich proper, south of the river. It offers a free service to vehicles crossing the Thames, and began operation in 1889.

I take a photo of the ferry, but in the absence of anything else worth looking at, I head back to the station and on to my final destination today, and the final station in the Ks - Knightsbridge.

Time for somewhere a little more upmarket...

***
And you can't get much higher up the market than Knightsbridge.

Knightsbridge

The street and area after which the station is named, is synonymous with wealth, being as it is the location of probably the most expensive and well known luxury shop in London - Harrods Department Store.

Knightsbridge - it's a rich man's world...

The most expensive property in London is to be found here, and indeed, in one building - 'One Hyde Park' - you can, if you have a couple of hundred million to spare, buy one of the most expensive apartments in the world and be neighbour to several Arab princes.

One Hyde Park

I've never really understood the attraction myself.

Sure, you get to live close to the centre of London, with its shops and tourist attractions and nightlife... But you also have to live close to the centre of London with its shoppers and tourists and drunks. And to top it all you live in what is essentially a glorified block of flats - no gardens, no fresh air, and the parking's a nightmare...

Harrods

Of course, as I mentioned before, you do have Harrods - and I suppose, if you're rich enough to live in One Hyde Park, then the prices of your weekly grocery shop at the famous Food Hall will be peanuts (gold-plated, diamond-encrusted peanuts, naturally).

Harrods Motto

The motto which is carved on the front of the store is Omnia Omnibus Ubique - which means 'All things, for all people, everywhere'. A splendid sentiment, though the 'all people' catered for should strictly speaking be 'all wealthy people'. (I don't count the everyday folk who go in for the cheapest possible item they can find, solely in order to walk out with a Harrods carrier bag).

To give you an example of the difference between Harrods and your usual department store - instead of the traditional summer outfits, matching kettle and toaster sets, or naff seasonal decorations, the window display here offers you Beluga Caviar, no doubt available within at eye-watering prices.

Beluga Caviar - for those who like that sort of stuff...

Established in 1834 by Charles Henry Harrod (already a successful businessman) the original grocery business expanded from a single room to a thriving enterprise taking over several adjacent properties.

Among its customers were such luminaries as Oscar Wilde, Sigmund Freud, Noel Coward, Charlie Chaplin and various Royals, and not even the fact of its sale to the Mohamed Al-Fayed empire in 1984, and its subsequent purchase by the Qatari government in 2010 seem to have tarnished its essential 'Britishness' and attraction to tourists.

The rest of Knightsbridge is made up mainly of more shops, as well as various Embassies and high-value properties. To the north is Hyde Park, and to the west are the various well-known museums (such as the Victoria & Albert and Natural History Museums) for which London is famous.

But all of these are closer to other tube stations, and will be better served by a later visit. Today, I think I've seen enough, and after a quick coffee (not from Harrods) I make my way home, another letter of the alphabet crossed off, and within spitting distance of the halfway point of my quest.

'Why Does It Always Rain On Me?'

Day 53

 

Kilburn - Kilburn High Road - Kilburn Park - Kingsbury

 

You see? No sooner have I got back into the saddle and set off all positive on a new series of tube travelling jaunts, than the weather starts playing silly buggers.

Up until today, the skies have been relatively blue and sunny (if crisply cold) but having decided that today would be a good day to go out wombling, the skies suddenly turn horribly grey and menacing and the rain comes down heavier than a herd of elephants parachuting from a lead balloon, each carrying a ton of bricks.

Nevertheless, a promise is a promise, and I've said I'll go out more often - and so I shall.

***
First up today is Kilburn (the area) and its three eponymous stations, beginning (not surprisingly) with Kilburn (the station).

Kilburn

This sits at the northern end of Kilburn High Road, which is in fact the modern incarnation of a small part of the ancient Roman road known as Watling Street, which stretched from Canterbury in Kent all the way up to Wroxeter in Shropshire. Despite only being a miniscule section of the whole, they obviously take a little pride here in being a part of it, as a commemorative paving stone attests:

So now we know - this is what the Romans ever did for us...

I'm a little confused by the '900s' as even my scant knowledge of history tells me that the Romans were long gone from this part of the world by then. And the name Watling Street is surely a bit of a give-away - not sounding particularly Latin. It actually derives from the word Waeclingas (the people of Waecla) who were a tribe based in St Albans, a major point on the route.

I continue on my rather hurried walk down the High Road.

It's the sort of weather today where there's almost no point carrying an umbrella, as every 30 seconds or so a malicious gust of wind flips it inside-out and defeats the whole object of having it. To try and avoid this I have to hold it as low and as close to my head as possible, pointing it slightly down and forwards as I attempt to walk along with my eyes consistently glued to the pavement a few feet in front of me, hoping I don't bump into anything, or anybody. Today's descriptions of Kilburn may therefore be slightly limited by the fact that I've really only seen  the bottom half of it.

I do see some very familiar sights as I pass Brondesbury Station, also on Kilburn High Road, which I visited way back in May 2014 (have I really been doing this that long already?!).

It struck me as odd at the time, and does so again today, to plonk down a station called Brondesbury slap bang in the middle of an area which so clearly likes to name its stations after itself, especially so close (a mere 200m to the south) to the 'big cheese' - Kilburn Station itself.

If you must have a station here, why not call it 'Kilburn Town', or 'Kilburn Central', or even perhaps 'Kilburn II: Son Of Kilburn (this time it's personal...)'

I Google the boundary maps of Brondesbury and Kilburn, and am even more bemused. It's true that boundary maps can sometimes be misleading, as London is divided up into both Boroughs and Electoral Wards, as well as postcodes and of course 'Norf' and 'Sarf'.

But using Electoral Wards as a basis, Kilburn Station is not actually in Kilburn Ward, while Brondesbury Station is. Or could be. Have a look at this map.

You'll see that, while Brondesbury Station is at the apex of both Kilburn and Brondesbury Park Wards, the station that is actually called Kilburn is at the apex between Brondesbury Park and Mapesbury Wards!

So perhaps the station called Brondesbury should be called Kilburn, and the station called Kilburn should be called Brondesbury (or perhaps Mapesbury would be better - just to avoid any unnecessary confusion...)

All of which nonsense occupies my mind as I sit in a café waiting in vain for the rain to ease off. Eventually though I give up the wait and venture forth once more.

The other two stations in Kilburn are similarly so close together as to render one or other of them seemingly redundant, with Kilburn High Road, being (obviously) on the High Road, and Kilburn Park around the corner on Cambridge Avenue.

Kilburn High Road

Kilburn Park

It's true that, like Kilburn and Brondesbury, these two are on separate lines of the network, with the result that Kilburn is served by the Jubilee, Bakerloo and two different branches of the Overground Lines. You really are spoilt for choice if you want to get to this part of the world.

Sadly, I'm not quite sure why anybody would want to get to this part of the world.

As I mentioned on my last visit, I find it all a bit 'past its best'. The shops are tired and a bit decrepit, the streets dirty and littered, and the sign in a local café window proclaiming 'Peace In A Cup' only suggests to me that the sign-writer may have slightly misheard the café owner's foreign intonation...

As I retrace my steps northwards back to the Jubilee Line, I pause at the Tricycle Theatre, which for me is the only reason ever to return to Kilburn.

It's an intimate venue - 235 seats - with a well-deserved reputation for putting on powerful productions, a number of which I've seen over the years, and have always enjoyed. The cultural diversity of the area is often reflected in the productions mounted here, which hopefully serves to bring more people into the theatre from different backgrounds.

To that extent, I can heartily recommend paying it a visit - and you'll certainly have no difficulty finding a train to get you here...

***
Having ticked off three stations within a mile of each other I'm feeling fairly chipper when I emerge from the train at Kingsbury - even more so because the rain has finally dissipated and I can take my photo of the station without having to juggle both camera and umbrella at the same time.

Kingsbury

As I've probably mentioned already, I invariably have a quick look on Google Maps before visiting an area - just to get a feel for the geography of a place and the sorts of establishment I might find there.

I urge you to do the same - as you might sometimes be surprised by the businesses whose names pop up as you zoom ever closer into the map. Now, let's be clear about this, this is a form of advertising for these businesses. They have gone to the trouble of creating a 'Google My Business' profile, presumably in the hope that people like you and me, hovering digitally above their location, will spot them and think to ourselves; 'Gosh, that's just the sort of place I'm looking for! And so close too! I think I'll go and give them a lot of money for something!'

And this is all fair enough.

But sometimes, and today is an example, I find the choices they make in how to label themselves a little, shall we say, odd...

For example, a few doors down from Kingsbury Station is an ordinary run of the mill jewellery shop, called 'Jyoti Jeweller's'. From the street it has the usual window display full of earrings and necklaces and so on, and a few notices informing us of some of the services it provides.

On Google Maps, however, you won't see a label for 'Jyoti Jeweller's' until you've zoomed in to the maximum magnification. Instead, and you'll hardly have to zoom in at all for this to leap out at you in all its horror, the self-same business is labelled quite clearly and distinctly as 'Baby Ear Piercing'.

Sometimes I despair of the human race.

For many, ear piercing (or indeed any form of bodily 'adornment') is something to be discouraged, vetoed, or downright forbidden by concerned parents until one is "old enough" (by which, presumably, they mean "old enough to make an informed judgement, being fully aware of the potential consequences, rather than being led by peer pressure or fashion or whatever the latest girl/boy band has done to themselves"). Annoying, when you're a teenager of course, but generally a source of relief when you look back and think "thank god I didn't get that tattoo of a My Little Pony/SpongeBob Squarepants/'I Love Zayn Malik' across my buttocks..."

Quite how old "enough" is, can of course vary enormously from family to family (and let's face it, sometimes we're never old enough not to make silly arses of ourselves). But I would have thought that the minimum requirement would be an age at which you actually have the physical and mental capability to communicate your choice to whomever it may concern - or in other words, when you're old enough to have learned to speak!

Jyoti's insistence, as given on their website, that 'your baby must be three months old or more' before they can be pierced seems disingenuous to say the least. Of course, in this case it's the parents who are having their children perforated in the name of decoration. And the only reason I can think of for doing so is as some kind of social status symbol - the equivalent of a blinged-up mobile phone case.

If I'm wrong, and there's some deep-rooted religious or cultural significance to the practice, and I've inadvertently offended anyone, I apologise (with the proviso that even some deep-rooted religious or cultural practices really do need to be given a long hard look at in the 21st Century - FGM anyone?)

Seriously - think about it - you are PUTTING HOLES IN YOUR CHILD!!!

The child has no say in this whatsoever. And until they are able to say 'yes please' or 'no thank you' (which as I say, is to me the minimum requirement!) then leave the poor mites alone! Otherwise it must surely be tantamount to abuse.

OK, I'll get off my soap-box now, but really.....

***
Anyway, back to Kingsbury.

The main street on which the station stands is Kingsbury Road, and is much like many others of its ilk. Various fast-food eateries, coffee shops, jewellers (grrrr...) and other small businesses crowd along either side of the busy road, and provide a hub for the locals to shop, eat, drink and chat.

Some distance away to the south is Fryent Country Park, a designated nature reserve, which covers 103 hectares. I see a smattering of be-wellied dog-walkers on the rolling hills in the distance, but after this morning's rain the whole place is very much a quagmire, and I turn back as soon as I see the state of the footpaths.

Instead, and continuing a theme I seem to have started last week, I  head north of the station to a road called Princes Avenue.

Last week I visited the location of a seventies TV comedy classic. This week it's the turn of a seventies TV children's classic - Grange Hill.

The exterior school shots for the first two series were taken outside Kingsbury High School on this road, although I have to admit I get no sense of familiarity, despite being an avid viewer in my childhood.



Kingsbury High School

The buildings haven't changed that much though...

Grange Hill High School (Photo copyright BBC)

Having taken a quick snap of the building, and hearing a horde of pupils returning along the street from their lunch break, the potentially negative interpretation that might be put on a middle-aged man taking photographs outside a school suddenly occurs to me. I hastily put my camera away (no doubt confirming my nefarious status to anyone who happens to be watching) and make my way, finally, back to the station and home.

'As Time Goes By'

Day 51/52

 

(1) Kensington (Olympia)
(2) Kentish Town - Kentish Town West - Kenton - Kew Gardens

 

Oh Lordy Me, what an age it's been since I last went a-wombling!

 

The last blog post was way back at the end of September last year! And though I did go out on a womble in November, albeit to only one station, somehow the actual writing up of the blog never quite seems to have materialised.

The reasons for the protracted delay in visiting any more stations were (and are) many and various, but I must admit that chief among them was the ever-worsening weather which heralded the onset of winter - and which continued relentlessly for most of the time between then and now. It's just no fun trudging round London's highways and byways in the pouring rain - especially with the increasing numbers of Christmas shoppers clogging up the streets in the run up to the festive period, and, in the weeks after it, the hordes of January Sales Bargain-Hunters.

The station I visited in November - Kensington (Olympia) - included a trip to the 'Ideal Home At Christmas' exhibition, and I had hoped to give you a suitably festive post before signing off for a few weeks until the new year.

Then, since that clearly didn't happen, I thought I'd get a trip done in January and combine two blogs in one, as a kind of 'January Sale' of my own. Again - a good intention that led nowhere.

And it's not just Christmas and New Year that have been and gone since my last post. Halloween, Bonfire Night, Twelfth Night, Shrove Tuesday, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day... how on earth have I managed to go through all of those without a single post???

So - time to put things right once and for all!

I've ventured forth once more, and managed to get a good four stations in today. The description of which, together with the visit to Kensington (Olympia) last year, will form the two parts of a great big, special, bumper, festive, celebratory, seasonal, double-issue with additional pull-out glossy sections and gift-vouchers worth a whopping 50% off your next blog post.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride - and in the meantime, let me be the first to wish you all a very merry Hallobonmasyearshrolentinese Day's Night!

 

***
(1)
 

Kensington (Olympia)

It's the 27th November 2015 - Christmas is just around the corner, and though I'm only visiting one station today, there is a distinctly festive whiff about it...

 

The station I'm going to exists solely as a means of visiting the building after which it is (in parenthesis at least) named. The 'Olympia' part of the name refers to the Exhibition Centre, and today's offering is the 'Ideal Home Show at Christmas'.

 

Yes - it's as awful as it sounds.

 

The hordes are greeted by the first of several rather grim looking Santas, and are sprayed with fake snow as they pass through the main doors into the huge aircraft hangar-like spaces inside.

 

Walking To A Winter Wonderland...

Here you can find all manner of gaudy tat, with which to festoon your house over the festive season - and if having your name written in tinsel, or being blinded by the combined wattage of several thousand fairy lights doesn't appeal, you can always while away some time watching fading celebrities chatting up the mainly middle-aged and female visitors to the exhibition.
 

Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen being smarmy.

 

I grit my teeth and do a complete tour of the building, but see very little I could ever contemplate spending my money on. Certainly there's nothing here that is innovative or stylish - in fact it all feels like a typical, if very, very large, Saturday market. I keep expecting to see Del Boy running past clutching a half-open suitcase full of dodgy Taiwanese singing Santas...

 

The Centre in full exhibition mode...

It takes me an hour and a half of pacing up and down between the various stands to visit the whole exhibition, and long before I've completed my perusal, I feel I've seen enough. I'm fully aware that the experience will make for a very short and unedifying blog post, but I just can't bear to stay here any longer. As soon as I can, I fight my way out through the crowds still streaming into the hall, and make my way down-heartedly back home.

The thing is, I love Christmas - I love the traditional, chestnutty, yule-log, Dickensian, mulled-wine-ness of it all. I love the food, the drink, the decorations, the present giving, the carol singing, and the mince-pie-and-a-glass-of-whisky-and-a-stick-of-carrot-for-Rudolph. I love the gathering of friends and the pleasure of time spent with those you love.

Christmas to me is like an old leather armchair tucked in close to the blazing log fire in the corner of a cosy country pub. Whereas this exhibition is like a Milton Keynes night-club full of Jager-Bomb and WKD fuelled lads and ladettes throwing up various fluorescent hues of vomit over each other.

Perhaps I'm getting old.......

Anyway, it's hardly the most exciting end to the year's travels - but we can always hope for a better selection next year, eh?

***
(2)

I begin my long-overdue new year travels by heading north to Kentish Town, where I can at least cross off two stations with relative ease. A good way to get the ball rolling again.

Kentish Town

Kentish Town Station is a Leslie Green designed, red-tiled affair sitting at the northern end of Kentish Town Road. The area is busy and cosmopolitan, with a number of actors, comedians and writers making their home here, and there's an obvious artistic bent seen in the decoration of some of the shops and houses.

Someone had a bit of fun here...

A bit more restrained but still a
nice splash of colour

The main street has, as well as the ubiquitous Costas and McDonalds, enough independent shops, cafés and restaurants to maintain a bit of character. And there's clearly a wide variety of ethnicities living here, judging by the different types of food outlet.

One of the establishments along this road, which at first glance seems to be a fairly run of the mill looking 'health spa', is almost conspicuous in its lack of self-promotion. Yes there are gaudy signs proclaiming it to be 'Rio's Relaxation Spa' - but below these the windows are completely blocked out by attractive but uninformative pictures of sandy beaches, the doors are shut, no glossy photos of healthy and beautiful patrons enjoying its facilities adorn the frontage...

Inside, all will be revealed...

The reason for this apparent modesty is soon discovered when you look at the building on Google Maps, or take a peek at its website. Here the modesty very quickly takes a running jump and all is - quite literally - revealed. It's no ordinary health spa - it's a Naturist spa.

Personally I have nothing against the idea of Naturism, despite its rather seedy 'Carry On Film' connotations (at least in this country). I'm just a little surprised to find it on a busy high street. It's the sort of thing one might expect to find on secluded beaches or select 'holiday camps' - but a North London suburb? Who knew?

And before you ask, no - I didn't go inside. I'm afraid that would be beyond the call of duty. So, in the best traditions of British journalism, I made my excuses and continued my wombling.

Further north up Kentish Town Road and veering off left along Highbury Road, I come to what could almost be described as a kind of musical Mecca - two Meccas in fact.

The Bull And Gate

The first, a pub called the Bull And Gate, is apparently where bands like Blur, Coldplay, Suede, Manic Street Preachers, The Housemartins, The Pogues and others all performed in their early years. Quite a line-up!

And practically next door is the Forum (formerly the Town & Country Club), which was a key venue for the Indie scene in the 80s, featuring bands such as The Pixies, Carter USM and The Wedding Present.

The Forum

Times have of course changed, and this week's offering from the legendary venue is a BBC hosted show entitled 'Eurovision: You Decide'. And indeed I do - I decide to move on.

Unfortunately, I'm unaware (until I spot it on Google on my return home) that there's a third venue on this stretch of road that I've completely missed. Not a music venue this time, but a cocktail bar. I may, I think be forgiven for missing it, since it is very much disguised as (and indeed used actually to be) a public toilet. One of those subterranean street corner ones where steps lead to separate 'Ladies' and 'Gents' sections.

The 'Ladies And Gentlemen' Cocktail Bar (The sign outside just reads 'Ladies & Gents - with no indication of what sort of establishment it is) was only launched in January 2015, and produces its own gin using a 16 litre copper still.

Shame I walked right past without noticing it really...

***
It's long been a bane of London life for me that so often you can't go from one place to another without the annoying palaver of taking a detour via the centre of town. The Piccadilly, Northern, Jubilee and Bakerloo lines all branch out northwards from the centre, yet getting from one to the other will almost always involve travelling south into Zone 1 first.

Kentish Town West

However, today I'm childishly pleased to note that I can take an Overground train from Kentish Town West almost all the way to my next destination - Kenton - with only a quick change of trains at Willesden Junction.

Kenton

I have a specific location (and I use the word advisedly) in mind to visit in Kenton - but first I take a quick stroll up and down the main Kenton Road. Much like Kentish Town, the shops and cafés are mainly independent although in this case that doesn't equate to a cosmopolitan feel - rather, like so many pockets of London, it feels like an area where people have basically given up trying.

"It's not worth making an effort," the shop fronts seem to say, "no-one ever comes here anyway..."

And so I quickly move off the main streets and head off in search of a quiet leafy cul-de-sac tucked away in the back streets.

At first, the corner of Mentmore Close and Lapstone Gardens may not appear in any way exceptional - and, indeed, that's the very  reason (in a sense) that it is. It's very ordinariness was the reason it forever became associated with one of the most memorable moments of British television comedy history.

Just an ordinary street corner...

It was here, on a rainy day in 1975 that a desperate and psychotically frustrated John Cleese (in the guise of Basil Fawlty) could be seen venting his fury on an innocent (if slightly unreliable) Austin 1100 car by giving it a 'damn good thrashing' with a convenient bit of the local foliage.

...And in its hey-day (Photo copyright BBC)

The choosing of film locations has often puzzled me, in a mild way. Given that, at the time of filming, the BBC was still firmly ensconced in the White City area, and had the historic Ealing Studios a mere stone's throw away, it seems peculiar that they sought out this particular corner of North West London for the sake of just a few minutes of film.

Was there something especially Fawlty-esque about this street corner? Was there no equivalent patch of suburbia closer to the studios?

Well, I can answer that - yes there was, and indeed is. For decades I had imagined that it had been in Ealing (on any one of half a dozen similar looking street corners) that the scene had been shot. The fact that I was mistaken only underlines the fact that surely, when the foreground features Basil Fawlty maniacally wielding a branch at a car, one street in the background must be just as good as any other. To go to the trouble of transporting the entire production crew several miles to the north west of where they're based seems a needless expense.

***
It's just gone lunchtime, and since I have a few hours of daylight left today, I decide to add an unscheduled station to my journey - and squeeze in a visit to Kew Gardens.

My decision is encouraged by the fact that, once again, I can avoid the convolutions of going via central London and take the Overground almost directly there - once again simply changing at Willesden Junction.

I really do like the Overground Line.

***

Kew Gardens

At Kew Gardens Station the heavens open.

What has thus far been a sunny early spring day, has reverted to being a miserable winter one. I sit in a nearby Starbucks (on the very pleasant Station Parade) for a while until the rain passes, and then venture forth again.

Being a resident of West London for over a quarter of a century, I have, not surprisingly, visited the 'Royal Botanic Gardens' at Kew (to give them their full title) several times over the years, and so don't really feel the need to do so again today.

Kew Gardens

However, I can heartily recommend them as a day out should you find yourself in this neck of the woods. The huge grounds, which include not just the expected greenhouses full of exotic plants, but also the Chinese Pagoda, Treetop Walkway, Japanese Garden, Redwood Grove and acres of open space, are a pleasure to explore.

I'll leave that to you though, as my travels for the day are over, and I make my way finally home.

***
And so, dear reader, we begin 2016.

I hope to be more conscientious with my blogging this year, and with the half-way point in sight (just a few more Ks and a couple of Ls!) I feel a determined effort coming on!

'Map Of The Problematique'

Day 50

 

Kennington - Kensal Green - Kensal Rise

 

Well, the best laid plans, and all that...

 

For various reasons, this morning I'm starting my journey from the third station on my itinerary - since I've had a meeting in north London first thing. I'm therefore parked on a meter near Kensal Rise, a ten minute walk away from Kensal Green (the second stop today), where I can catch a Bakerloo line train south to Kennington (or near enough) - which is the first stop on my list.

 

You know - there really are times when I regret my strict adherence to the alphabetical order I imposed upon myself at the beginning of this venture...

 

***

The regret turns fairly quickly and increasingly into frustration however, as the Bakerloo train grinds to a halt almost as soon as it pulls out of Kensal Green station. The driver doesn't seem to have any information beyond the standard 'being held at a red signal', so all we can do is sit and wait.

 

Eventually, though very slowly, we crawl southwards station by station. At some point the driver of our train is replaced by a different one who seems to have been given a bit more information to pass onto us. It seems there's a signal failure at Baker Street, which is naturally causing severe delays up and down the line.

 

It's already taken me the best part of half an hour to travel a mere half-dozen stations, and the clock (or rather the parking meter) is ticking. I gave myself the maximum 4 hours on the meter, knowing that Kennington has at least one attraction that will occupy me for the best part of an hour, and assuming that doing justice to the other two stations and their environs, together with travelling time, would easily fill the remaining 3 hours.

 

Now though, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to have time to visit one station - let alone three. Having sat on a stationary train for ten minutes at Marylebone, I therefore decide to change my plans and get out and walk to Baker Street - where hopefully the Jubilee Line will be running better than the Bakerloo.

 

As I arrive at Baker Street and descend the escalator, I see a trio of fluorescently-jacketed workmen carrying bundles of cable down into the depths. On the face of it, this doesn't look good, but the words I catch as I pass them - 'yeah, looks like it's all sorted now' - seem promising, so when I get to the platform level and have the choice of turning left and getting the waiting Jubilee train, or turning right and taking the Bakerloo, I choose to resort to my original plan and get back on the Bakerloo line.

 

The Jubilee train pulls away almost immediately, while the Bakerloo train remains unmoving, just long enough for the driver to tell us that the signal failure is still a failure, and that there are still severe delays on the line, before the doors close and it begins to judder away from the platform at a snails pace. And I'm trapped again.

 

It's about this time that I seriously consider giving today up as a bad job and turning around as soon as I get to the next station - whenever that might be.

 

At Regent's Park, however, I realise that I might still be able to get to Kennington in time, if I walk along the Euston Road to Warren Street station and get the Northern Line from there - and so, eventually, that's exactly what I do. And An hour and a half after setting off, I finally emerge from Kennington Station.

 

***

Kennington

At Kennington my original plan was to have been a gentle stroll around the area, taking in the various streets, the White Bear pub theatre, perhaps a wander round Kennington Park, before heading to the attraction I mentioned earlier.

 

Now though, I'm clearly in a bit of a rush, and so head straight down Kennington Park Road, passing both the White Bear and the park with barely a pause, on my way to my ultimate goal - the 'attraction' I mentioned earlier and about which I have, until now, maintained a no doubt irritating air of mystery.

 

The reason for this enigmatic behaviour is simply that - without the afore-going explanation of my various travel woes - my current frantic haste to get to the Beefeater Gin Distillery (for such is the attraction I've been tantalising you with) as quickly as possible, might conceivably have been misconstrued.

 

On the other hand, after the morning I've had, the free gin and tonic on offer as part of the hour-long Distillery Tour is sounding exceedingly tempting. And I still have about two and a half hours before the meter runs out in Kensal Rise - surely that's enough to do the tour, and get back up to north London?

 

Hmmm...

 

Beefeater Distillery

The Beefeater brand has been in circulation since 1876, although the distillery here in Kennington has only been in operation since 1958. A little confusing then to find the date 'Established 1820' emblazoned over the door, and I can't help feeling the manufacturers are being a little cheeky here, since their own website gives the timeline as follows:

 

1820 - a distillery is opened in Chelsea by a certain John Taylor - this has, as yet, nothing whatsoever to do with Beefeater Gin.

 

1835 - The person who would later go on to create the Beefeater brand - James  Burrough - is born. Yes - born - so he'd have been very clever indeed to have established Beefeater Gin fifteen years beforehand.

 

1863 - Burrough purchases the Chelsea distillery from Taylor and begins making various gins, though not, as yet, under the name Beefeater.

 

1876 - Beefeater Gin is first created. 56 years after the date so proudly claimed by the current distillery, and some 80-odd years before they even moved to this part of London.

 

Isn't marketing a wonderful thing...

 

Now, I have to admit to personally being more of a fan of Whisky than of Gin, and in fact only a little while ago, I spent a lovely weekend on the Scottish island of Islay visiting, and being guided round, various distilleries up there.

 

I therefore have both a reasonable knowledge of how distilleries work, and more relevantly, how a Distillery Tour should work. People come here because they want to get 'behind the scenes'. They want to see the various stages of distillation in progress. They want to learn something new. And - let's admit it - they want a free glass of something alcoholic at the end of it.

 

Some spices

The Beefeater tour, sadly, is a bit of a let-down in all but the last of these aspects.

 

The 'tour' starts with a 'self-guided' wander through a rather dull museum of Gin History. The museum has very few physical exhibits, being largely made up of semi-informative signs on the wall: 'This is how Gin started', 'This is how it's made', 'This is what goes into it', 'This is a picture Hogarth drew about it', and so on.

 

A still

Yes, there's a Still (though whether it's real or a model I can't tell) and one or two curiosities, such as the wooden-cat sign through which gin could be illicitly supplied to passing customers, but it takes barely ten minutes to pass through these and the examples of Beefeater advertising which follow.

 

The 'ingenious' though not-very-well-disguised secret Gin dispenser.

After that we (I'm here at the same time as half a dozen German tourists) have to wait for the next, guided, stage of the tour to start at 12pm.

 

A bit of branding

The various labels

I had been mildly surprised to be sold my ticket for the tour at the front desk by an American receptionist.

 

Given the 'Ultra-British' branding and heritage of this particular make of Gin, I had assumed that everyone working here would be British, and probably English, and quite possibly your genuine Cockney, at the very least.

 

I'm even more surprised therefore, when the tour guide turns up and greets us all with an overly-enthusiastic 'Howdy guys, y'all ready for some damn fine gin, darn tootin'?' (well, ok, he didn't say 'darn tootin' - but you get the idea).

 

Not that I have anything especially against Americans - far from it - it just doesn't quite fit with the overall impression the distillery seems to want to create, namely that Gin was, and is, as British as Earl Grey tea, village cricket, Big Ben, Constable's Haywain, and Mary Berry all rolled into one.

 

However, I decide to give the lad a chance, and follow him through to the next stage of the tour - into the distillery itself.

 

Still Life

Except, disappointingly, and very much unlike the whisky distilleries I had visited so recently, we are led not into the heat and steam and mass of pipe-work that is the bowels of a working distillery, but instead into a rather sterile whitewashed room on a level below the still-room, from where we may (if we stand huddled against one wall and crane our necks up at a specific angle) get a glimpse, through a glass section of the ceiling, of the top-half of some stills.

 

Everybody say 'ooohhh!'

 

Our poor American friend does his best, to give him his due, but I'm afraid his attempts at humour and whipping up some enthusiasm for yet more signs on the wall telling us how gin is made, are beaten into submission by the general air of disappointment and the fact that the Germans don't really understand him all that well.

 

The Gin and Tonic was nice though.

 

***

But I haven't really got time to enjoy it as much as I'd like. I down it far more quickly than is probably advisable at this time of day (thus no doubt giving the others the impression that I'm a raging alcoholic) and hurry back to the station.

 

I've seen very little of Kennington, and what I have seen has been a bit of a let-down, but I'm sure the rest of it is very nice - if only I had time to visit it properly.

 

***

Learning from my earlier experiences I give the Bakerloo Line a wide berth and head northwards on the Northern Line all the way to Euston, from where I can get an Overground Train to Kensal Green.

 

I'm going to be cutting it a bit fine now, as I have just over an hour before my meter runs out, but with a bit of luck I should have time to get to Kensal Green, take a photo, walk to Kensal Rise, take another photo, and get back to the car in time to avoid getting a ticket.

 

With a bit of luck.

 

Should have known better really shouldn't I?

 

Not once, in all the time I've been doing this journey, have I had to wait more than about five minutes for a train, be it Underground, Overground, DLR or even Cable Car. So why is it that when I get to Euston and look at the departures board, that the next train to Kensal Green is a TWENTY MINUTE WAIT?!?!?

 

It leaves Euston barely ten minutes before my meter is due to expire, and I know from this morning that it's at least that long a walk between Kensal Green and Kensal Rise. There are also four stations between Euston and Kensal Green - another 8-10 minutes at least. And there's no other route which wouldn't take me at least as long, if not longer.

 

I'm scuppered.

 

All I can do is get from Kensal Green to my car as quickly as possible - not stopping for a photo or any sight-seeing - and hope that the Traffic Wardens are occupied elsewhere for a few more minutes rather than hovering around the parking meter waiting to pounce the second it clicks down to zero. This will of course mean that despite having visited them both twice today, since I have no photographic proof, neither Kensal Green nor Kensal Rise will have been officially visited under the terms of this blog. What a waste of a day!

 

Anyway, after my twenty minute wait - feeling very frustrated - I eventually get the train to Kensal Green. I dash up the stairs from the platform as soon as we arrive, burst through the ticket gate like an avenging fury, walk hurriedly (I'm not built for running) to Kensal Rise, and reach my car 7 minutes after the time on the meter runs out.

 

As I near my car, I slow down - there are no Parking Wardens in sight, but I'm already well past the time I've paid for, so they could have been and gone by now, and I can't yet see the windscreen to see whether there's a little square bundle of joy tucked under the wiper blade...

 

Nothing!

 

I've got away with it! Praise be! I jump in the car and start it up as quickly as I can.

 

I've now got a choice to make. I could just head home, writing the day off as a bit of a disaster, and facing the prospect of another trip up to this neck of the woods next time. Or, I could take my car back to Kensal Green, park for a few seconds (making sure there are no wardens lurking about of course!) and snap a quick photo of the station. I could then drive back to Kensal Rise and do the same there. It will mean that I get my photos at least, although it might be argued that I haven't really explored the surroundings very much. On the other hand, since I've twice walked the various non-descript streets between the two stations, and since my original pre-trip research threw up nothing more interesting than the fact that the main street outside Kensal Rise station was apparently the 'hippest street in Europe' in 2009 (according to Vogue at least), I feel like I've really seen all I want to see of this particular part of town.

 

And so here they both are, in all their glory. Please feel free to visit them yourselves and tell me if I missed anything exciting...

Kensal Green

Kensal Rise