What I did this week....

Its been a bit of a water based week this week, now that my cast is off and I can do a few more things,  like cycling, kayaking, and swimming. I don't really like swimming as I find it incredibly boring, but I go when I can, at about 0815 hrs, swim a kilometre (40 lengths) as fast as I can, then get out and get on with the rest of my day. It is a good workout and good resistance training for my wrist. However, this week was school half term and looked like the pool would be full of kids, so apart from Monday, I stayed well clear.

The weather at the beginning of the week helped too, with warm sunshine which brought on a spot of lazing about by the water and eating lunch. This country might have gone to ratshit in many ways, but pubs are something that we still do extremely well. And pubs by the water are very good, like the Anchor at Pyrford on the Wey navigation in Surrey.

Then on Tuesday I went litter picking (with others) along the banks of the Grand Union Canal.

Not an isolated social cause nor a bit of community reparation, but a day organised by the Canal and Rivers Trust, which has taken over from British Waterways.

The Grand Union Canal was the main canal of the British canals system, and runs 137 miles from Central London to Birmingham, and links various sub canals as it does so. I have a plan to kayak the entire route once the weather gets a bit warmer as it will involve camping and living wild, so an opportunity to suss out the London bits of the waterway was useful.

 

The inland waterways fell into disrepair following the arrival of the railways, and by the 1970's many were just rubbish filled ditches that some wanted filled in and built upon. But various people fought to save them as recreational entities, and many were restored by volunteers. And the Grand Union Canal is one of them. Many of the buildings along its banks were demolished and replaced, like these flats in Alperton. Two of the people on the litter pick up lived in the block above, and invited me up to take pictures. The sun was a bit hazy but the views were still good.

By Wednesday, I was ready for a bit of paddling but having looked at the Thames, decided to give that a miss as it was running very fast after recent rain, and I was not certain that my arm would cope. So instead, I went on the River Mole down near Esher. Its a nice rural river that winds through countryside. No noise, no people but a few dogs which tried to chase me but couldn't as I was safely out of reach in the middle of the water. Photos were a bit restricted though as I was worried about dropping my iPhone into the drink.

My arms and abs were screaming by the time I'd finished, so I made do with a couple of Pilates classes on Thursday, then went cycling on Friday. I thought I'd explore the rest of the Grand Union Canal from the Bulls Bridge junction. This is where it splits into the Paddington arm and the Brentford arm,  I took the tube out to Hounslow West, then cycled to Bulls Bridge, then followed the Paddington arm back into Central London.

The good thing was that it was flat.....but in parts it was also very muddy and I was on my Brompton    ( a folding bike, necessary to travel on the tube or overground trains at anytime) and that's a bit like pedalling a dining room chair. And as there was a strong headwind all the way, it was a hard ride. But the regeneration along the banks is impressive and made it quite interesting and distracted me from my increasingly achy legs. However, the cold wind meant that I kept going rather than stop to take many pictures.

Then just as I'd had enough and didn't think I could push my legs around anymore, I was in Paddington riding past Spiderman who was otherwise occupied.

A few more metres and I reached the watery turn around point of Little Venice, Paddington Station, and the train home. Hurrah.

Down the Tubes

Down the London tube system to be precise, the oldest system in the world, 150 years old last month, and still going strong. Although we moan and grumble about it, it really is an exceptional service and is incredibly reliable. It has its faults of course, but its advantages really do outweigh its disadvantages.

So today was another London Walk, this one having been put together by Fiona, the guide, and its only being run in February, just to test it out I guess. But I was more than glad to be undercover today, particularly after the cold and snow of yesterday, and with a few others, I spent several hours being guided round stations and tunnels and discovering stuff that I'd never noticed before. Most of the facts came from the guide too as I really didn't know much about this system which I use, or have used most days of my working life.

I suppose the thing with the tube system is that it is a transport system designed to get you from A to B. And because you're always en route to somewhere or something, you rarely take in many of the aesthetics of the place, let alone quirky little things on platforms or in tunnels. But it stands to reason that being so old, and the first one in the world, the London underground must have some interesting stuff associated with it it. Of course it must......

...... things like some parliamentary Act way back in the mid 1800s when railways started, declaring that any railway terminus in London must be built on the ten outskirts of the city, not in the centre where rich landowners had property, which is why none of the London termini are actually in the city centre, although with today's sprawl, they seem quite close in. But back then, the land on which they were built were fields and open land right on the edge of urbanisation.

That of course meant that you could get to London, but not across it that easily as there was only horse drawn public transport and little  traffic regulation or organisation. There were no such things such as bus stops, as buses would stop anywhere if hailed, and this led to traffic blocks. Everybody walked to work back then, but foot travel limited the distance that people could live away from work. So when somebody realised that a city transport system would really make a difference, ideas started to take shape.

Several people proposed an underground railway. The Metropolitan Line was the first one, which came in from the north, tunnels generally following the line of the road and being dug from the surface, lined with brick, then covered. This was relatively cheap as no buildings on the surface were affected. Originally, the tube lines were glass covered, but then they were covered. But as the idea really took off and the tube system started to be developed under the city, tunnelling became the norm. Marc Brunel developed a tunnelling shield to help them, which was perfected by several others,  and today forms the basis of modern tunnelling equipment.

The Metropolitan Line goes through Baker Street Station, which is famous for the Sherlock Holmes stories.

It is also quite a spectacular station. The  shaft things above the platform originally went up to street level and acted as a light source, but with the advent of electric light in the late 1800s, were sealed.

Access to and from the lines was originally by lift as well ( all stations) which was something else enabled by the development of electricity. That also meant that many stations had domed roofs because that is where the winding gear was located.

But lifts meant crowds of people waiting around, and hence delays, so moving stairs were needed.  However, the first moving staircase was spiral ( how cool is that?) but the bloke who developed it sold his idea to Otis who then developed escalators as we know them. The longest one on the Underground system is at Angel on the Northern Line.

For years, different lines were owned by different companies and it wasn't until 1933 that you could just buy a ticket and get on a train and get to your destination by any route. This was particularly difficult on parts of the Circle Line which coincided with some of the District Line. But after 1933, the lines were all colour coded and open to all.

Wooden escalators were finally removed from the underground system after the fatal fire at Kings Cross in November 1987. Most people who died in that fire (31) were caught in the fireball that came up the escalator and into the main hall at Kings Cross.

Although that was clearly a terrible event, it is one of the only major incidents in the underground's long history, which given its age and the amount of passengers it caries on a daily basis, is impressive in terms of safety. The Moorgate crash in the 1970s was another incident, whilst subsequent events have resulted from outside actions such as terrorism.

Two different styles of station are evident on the London Underground. Some like Covent Garden sport brown and green tiling both inside and out. This is the work of Leslie Green.

These buildings are generally flat topped and enabled building on top.

Later stations have a different style, and were the work of Charles Holden.  They often incorporate shops and wide concourses, such as found at Picadilly circus.The Underground headquarters at St James' Park Station in Victoria were also designed by him., as were many of the Commonwealth war graves in Belgium and France.

The deepest station below sea level is Waterloo. That one surprised me. The deepest under land is highgate in north London. That's because the land rises although the tube line remains level.

Tube stations near the Thames have floodgates that can be lowered should flooding be feared. They are tested regularly and were first brought in during WW2 when it was feared that if V2 rockets landed in or around the Thames, water would penetrate the tunnels, and cause widespread damage and death.

Walking London

Had a great day today - I went on one of those organised walks that they do round bits of London. Actually, I did the wrong one, not that it mattered as I will do the intended one in a week or so. But it was excellent, based on Dickens, and full of little snippets and facts, and I learnt heaps. And this has nothing to do with the Capital ring either - that is more of an all day walk that I'm planning on doing maybe once a week.

I was a bit early though, so I had a wander down by old Billingsgate and the river, which was very cold and uninviting. The Shard was shrouded in low cloud too - so glad I hadn't forked out to go up it
( and I won't be at £25.00 a pop)

 But its reflection was cool once the cloud cleared a bit.

The fish on top of the old fish market are really creepy just like those old Victorian monster films. They used to freak me out when I was little and I've never really been able to look at them in any other way. Nasty.

 But Tower and London bridges were still good to look at in the snowy murk.

I always love it when you learn things about places you know, and today was no exception. I used to work not far from Southwark back in the 1980s, and although its been somewhat poshed up now from what it was back then, there are still many fascinating places to surprise.And the guides are excellent and really know their stuff.

So a quick nip over London bridge from Monument tube station to some steps on the south side. The station is right opposite the 202ft monument that marks the starting point of the Great Fire of London in 1666 that wiped out many thousand houses and put paid to the Plague that raged at the time. However, and older station stood nearby.

The bridge dates from the 1970s although there has been a bridge there for about 2000 years. The top edge of the bridge is metal and made some cool melted snow patterns.

The former (Victorian) bridge is the one that got sold to an American businessman and was rebuilt in Arizona. The steps in question are on the right hand side of the bridge as you go towards London Bridge station, and lead down to Southwark Cathedral.

These are the steps that Dickens featured in Oliver Twist, where Nancy was overheard grassing up her criminal mates in order to help Oliver, and later paid for the deed with her life when she was beaten to death by Bill Sykes. I used to nip up and down these steps at least three times a week when I worked nearby and spent my lunchtimes wandering instead of sitting in the office. Yet I never knew their significance. And this is where the end of the Victorian bridge can be seen; and its the only bit that remains because it was so woven into the structure of surrounding buildings that it wasn't practical to remove it.

Just along from this bit of the bridge is Southwark Cathedral, surprisingly small on the cathedral-ometer. But it turns out - according to Rex the guide who was full of interesting facts about everything along this walk - that it only became a cathedral in the early 1900s, having been a mere church before that - St Mary Overy. And what's more, when it was still a church the river actually  went right up to its gates. Now its about 100 metres away, thanks to Victorian engineering wizardry when the river was canalised by Bazalgette and his sewerage system which runs parallel to it but under the pedestrianised bit.

Behind Southwark Cathedral is Borough Market, a fruit and veg market which still operates as such although not in the same way as it did. Its now mostly artisan outlets and foody places, albeit with some suspicious offerings.

But its nice though, and the architecture is the same.

I used to go in this pub years ago. Its one of those with market hours, meaning it opened during the  night. We used to go in there after a night duty, and it had sawdust on the floor and knock off from the market being touted.

A bit further on, Rex took us down some side roads and pointed out brickwork of all things. Because London is built on clay, it has no real local building materials except sand and clay which used to be made into bricks, which were actually quite inferior and weathered quickly. They now put something in the mix which makes them more hardy, but back in Victorian times, it soaked up smells and soot and weather. Its a yellow brick called London yellow and its seen everywhere.

Then there are the schools. Ragged schools were the first generation of education which poor kids got for free. Then they were superseded by Board schools, and one stipulation that the latter had was that a play area had to be provided for pupils. But space was   at a premium and already in use.....so they put them on the school roof. Ingenious!

With such a dense population and complete lack of planning, fire was always a danger. A bloke in Edinburgh developed the world's first ever metropolitan fire brigade and when  it proved a real success, he was invited to London, where he did the same, and invented the LFB - London Fire Brigade. Ironically, he later died in a fire.

The LFB was mostly made up of volunteer crew, recruited from local pubs, the latter being a place where men always gathered. After the fire was out, the `LFB would go back to the pub and buy all helpers a drink.

But there were some men who always volunteered....and again, according to Rex, one of them was the Prince of Wales, later King Edward 7th, who regularly volunteered in Southwark from the fire station with this tower; towers were important spotting aids.

 The wild geese of Southwark were something that I already knew about., and actually referred to wild women rather than wild birds. The Bishop of Winchester under whose jurisdiction Southwark came was quite liberal and allowed brothels and things to flourish, and also allowed dead prostitutes to be buried. However, they could not be buried in consecrated ground ( nor could criminals or those who killed themselves) so they usually ended up in the Cross bones grave yard in Redcross Way. The piece of land is still there and is now owned by TFL which has agreed not to build on it. When nearby rail related construction work is finished, the site will apparently be turned into a local park/garden like many former burial yards already have been.

This whole area is the area which many of Dickens' novels are set in, or at least, elements of what was going on at the time in the immediate vicinity are incorporated into his writing. Little Dorritt is of particular significance as it is centred on the Marshalsea Prison, a debtors prison. It no longer exists although the site of the gates are marked by modern gates at the rear of St George's Churchyard, just off Tabard Street, at Borough tube station end.

Dickens used his own experiences of his own family getting banged up in the place when his father got into debt in the early 1800s to write the story. He lodged with a woman just along the street, and where Charles Dickens Primary School now stands when he was earning money to pay for their food and paying off his family debt ( he worked in a blacking factory at the bottom of Villiers Street, just up from Embankment tube station.)

And finally, and probably the biggest surprise of all were the little Octavia Hill cottages that I have walked past hundreds of times. I never knew what they were although I thought they were nice. But it turns out that she (she was a also a founding member of The National Trust) was a great social reformer and philanthropist, and she started the cottages as a form of social housing, encouraging the tenants to keep gardens and grow food. She also pioneered military training for boys living there - something which later became the Army Cadet force.

These walks are so good and the guides are really knowledgeable. Coupled with a few facts of my own and a (rather paltry) degree of my home research, it really brought the place to life and was well worn the effort of going out in biting cold and snow when I could have stayed home.