Ice, Ice Baby

Winter, it would seem, is well and truly here. I am basing this purely on the heinous amount of snow outside. Of course, this isn’t entirely unexpected – it’s been brass-monkeys cold for a while now. I’m not a religious guy, but on Saturday, with my hands purple and aching with cold, I had cause to thank God for Primark and their inexpensive gloves. Later that day I took the terrible photo above, showing that City Road Basin in Islington was partially frozen.

Back in “The Day,” (i.e. up until about the mid-20th century) frozen canals and rivers were a serious issue. Canals in particular, which don’t flow like a river, were vulnerable to icing up. This had obvious economic consequences for trade, particularly before the advent of decent roads and railways. The low-tech but cunning solution was to apply brute force and a certain amount of wiggling. This was achieved using the canal icebreaker, or ”rocker,” as they were known in the business.

The rocker was like a shortened narrowboat, but instead of a cargo area, it simply had a long bar. The bow sloped upwards. A team of men would stand either side, holding on to the bar. When the rocker came to ice, the bow would ride up on top of the ice and the men would rock back and forth to break it (hence the vessel’s nickname). This was usually sufficient for all but the most Arctic conditions in London.

[PARENTHESIS: Did you know that the word "Arctic" comes from the Latin word for polar bear, "arcta." Arctic literally means "place where there are polar bears." Antarctic means "place where there are no polar bears." Now you know.]

Now, earlier this year I wrote about the frost fairs that were held on the Thames when it froze over in winter. The idea of the river freezing over sounds like the sort of thing that went out with breeches and snufftaking. In fact, the end of the frozen Thames can be put down to several factors. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the river flows that much faster these days. The construction of the Embankments north and south of the river has constrained it, which, if you recall your school physics lessons, speeds the flow up. The old London Bridge, which had lots of arches and waterwheels to slow things down, has been demolished and replaced twice – the new one allowing freer flow and also, interestingly, possessing heating elements for the road over it.

Industry since the dawn of the steam age has discharged a lot of hot water – and other products – into the Thames, raising the overall temperature. I would imagine residential and commercial premises, with their heating and lighting, are contributing factors as well – but I’m no scientist.

And down in South London, the draining of the Lambeth marshes (commemorated with the street called Lower Marsh in Waterloo) has meant that ice no longer forms along the banks there, preventing the freeze from getting a foothold, or whatever it is that freezes do.

That being said, I was surprised to learn how recent the last big freeze was. In fact, it was 1963. This was the coldest winter since 1740. Roads and railways were, as you might imagine, choked up. Rivers fared little better, and even the sea was frozen at Margate and Chatham (the Navy employed an icebreaker at the latter). The Thames, as you can see above in this view at Windsor, was no exception. At Oxford, one chap managed to drive a car across the river. The docks in London iced up like many others, driving prices of imported goods up. Kingston saw ice skating on the river, and bicycle races were held at Hampton. Below right may be seen boas iced up near Hampton Wick.

Will climate change result in us seeing another freeze like 1963, or are such sights finally confined to the history books? Well I don’t know.

Up and down the City Road

This entry may be a little brief, for which I apologise. I found myself on an unexpected evening out with Teachmaster D, the Catlady, Mistress Bitch and Mistress Bitch’s boyfriend, among others. It was a surprisingly eventful evening in which the Archies somehow became associated with Holocaust denial.

You bastards.

That being said, here is the entry for today, such as it is.

I’ve always been a bit sceptical about those people who claim there’s something mystical about wandering about the city. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice and all, but let’s not pretend it’s anything other than a pleasant way to fill a boring afternoon. Still, yesterday I had a trip out that did rather make me wonder.

You see, I set out with no particular goal in mind. It’s quite often how I roll on a boring weekend – jump on a train and see where I end up. As the train rolled into London Bridge, it occurred to me that it might be quite pleasant to head over to Islington and have a look down Camden Passage. Cass Art have a very large shop there, and I felt I could justify a visit.

While there, I remembered a thing I’d seen a couple of weeks ago on the walk described in the entry I tastefully titled ‘Canal Penetration.’ Opposite the towpath, I’d seen an old factory converted into offices, complete with what looked like an elderly crane. I have a strange fascination with old machinery, so I thought I’d see if I could get any closer, as I was in the area and all. I’d been meaning to.

I was therefore surprised to see that, as part of the Open House weekend, about which I’d entirely forgotten, the normally-closed-off wharf was open. It’s just weird to me that the one day I decide, randomly, to check this out on the offchance is the one day that I actually can check it out. No doubt the statisticians will tell me that actually there’s nothing weird about that, but boo.

I managed to get plenty of photos of the factory and the crane. The crane appears to have had its cabin replaced, judging by the neatness of the wood.

I was also quite interested to note that there is what looks like an abandoned railway on the wharfside. It’s a narrow gauge railway, as was once common in industry in Britain. A few old trucks had also survived and were dotted about the place.

I took many photos, most of which would be of interest only to nerds like me. But check out the picture on the left. A pillar of the factory goes straight through the railway track, suggesting to me that the line pre-dates the factory (or at least, that part of it).

The trucks have had their bodies replaced, so even if we assume they’re original, it’s hard to tell what they would have looked like during their working lives. However, they were very light to push over cobbles, and even with their original bodies I suspect they would not have been difficult to move on rails. Long story short, I don’t think this railway would ever have been locomotive worked, although I suspect it would once have been longer. Two tracks are in situ, one of which I suspect would have been a siding used for storage. Unfortunately, I’ve been able to find nothing on Google about this railway, and the rest of the area has been built over.

I had a quick shufti at the City Road Basin, seen on the right. This was once an important industrial site, built in 1820 (was this the date when our mystery railway appeared?) and the closest canal basin to the City. Despite its profitable location, like the rest of Britain’s canal system, it’s become more-or-less obsolete in recent years. There have been some residential developments, but even on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the place had an air of quiet loneliness about it.

The little boat on the left deserves some brief attention. It’s a Bantam tug. These were built in Brentford in the 1950s and 60s to push and pull barges on the canals. Several have been preserved and several more remain in service. Life is obviously slower on the waterways. Or they’re just pretty good tugboats.

As I turned on to City Road, the building on the right caught my eye. At first glance, it’s just your standard common-or-garden eyesore. It looks like an ancillary building for the tower block behind. Yet there were one or two things that made me wonder. For instance, it looks like there’s quite a large door that’s been boarded over at the front. And though it’s not entirely clear in this photo, there’s some architectural detail that seems a little fancy for the rough-and-ready architecture on display behind.

My suspicions were confirmed when I got home. This is, in fact, an abandoned Tube station, or as much as survives. It’s City Road, opened by the City and South London Railway in 1901. It lay between Angel and Old Street on what is now the Northern Line, City Branch. It was never a very popular station, and to be honest even today it’s not hard to see why. It’s only about 15-20 minutes gentle stroll from Angel to Old Street, and it’s not like there’s anything around here that really justifies a whole Tube station.

When rebuilding work was carried out on the stations of the C&SLR in the 1920s, the Company decided to cut their losses and simply shut the station down rather than waste money bringing it up to then-modern standards. Aside from being used as an air raid shelter, the station saw no further use after 1924. The only reason there’s anything above ground at all is because it was decided to convert the old lift shafts into ventilation shafts – what survives is the brickwork that once surrounded those shafts, the rest having been demolished. There are also remains at platform level, though I’ll own I’ve not seen them myself.

Honestly, this place is pretty good if you like your abandoned transport systems. If T. S. Eliot was an industrial archaeologist, he’d probably write a poem about it.

Further Reading

http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/City_Road_station.html - An excellent feature showing the below-ground remains of City Road.

Canal Penetration

I do not appear to understand the concept of a short walk. This fact was brought home to me on Sunday. Having attended a wedding on Wednesday, I was feeling somewhat guilty at the Elvis-level calorie intake I had managed that day, and therefore had resolved to behave myself with a little more restraint. Sunday, I thought, would be an ideal day to get a little exercise. I thought it might be nice to do some more of the Regent’s Canal.

The Regent’s Canal, if you’re not familiar with it (though you may have some passing acquaintance with it if you’re a regular reader of this blog), is a waterway running from the Thames at Limehouse to the Grand Junction Canal at Paddington. The canal was opened in two sections – from Paddington to Camden in 1816 and Camden to Limehouse in 1820. In those days, before decent roads and railways, canals were the arteries of industry. The Grand Junction Canal was the quickest means of transporting goods in quantity from the industrial Midlands to London. The Regent’s Canal therefore served an important economic purpose, as it formed the final link between the Midlands and the Port of London and therefore the rest of the world. It survived the coming of the railways and the roads, but by the 1930s was largely obsolete.

Today, although there is a small amount of cargo, it’s primarily used for pleasure craft. The warehouses and factories that once lined its route have either been demolished or repurposed (most notably, one major interchange between rail and canal is now Camden Lock Market and the Stables). The towpath is a popular route with cyclists, walkers and idiots (yo).

My original intention was to only walk a short section of the canal, say Camden to King’s Cross or Islington. But I have this tendency, once I start walking, to keep on going far longer than is perhaps wise. As a result, I ended up walking all the way to Limehouse Basin. As I had previously walked from Camden to Paddington (hence the photos you have been seeing so far), I can now say that I have walked the full length of the canal.

From a psychogeographical point of view, what’s interesting about this walk is that it let me see familiar places from a different point of view. Of course, I’d seen the canal at Paddington, Regent’s Park, Camden, King’s Cross, St Pancras, Caledonian Road, Islington, Hackney and Limehouse before. Indeed, I’ve written about it in at least two of those locations in this very blog. But it had just been a landmark then, with no sort of context. I had some vague awareness that this stretch of canal was the same as that stretch of canal, but only as a theoretical thing. To experience the whole thing from a boat’s eye view, as it were, was rather novel. I think I’ve been enlightened in some way.

Anyway, I’ve waffled on for far too long already, given that this was supposed to be a photo-ey entry. I shall keep the prattle to a minimum from here on in, and instead continue to present my (usual crappy) photographs in geographical order from Paddington to Limehouse. Camden Lock is a notable omission here,  due to the fact that on neither of the walks presented here did I actually intend to document the entire canal.

One last point I would like to make is the range of contrast as you go along the river, from affluent Regent’s Park and Little Venice to the post-industrial landscape of the Docklands. I’ll shut up now. For now.

Sorry, me again. At this point on the walk, the canal cut through the hill at Islington, and I had to leave the towpath. Some explanation may be needed for the following photos.

I snapped this because I had walked along this road once before, a couple of years ago, desperately hungover. I was leaving the Barnsbury flat of a friend we shall simply call The Monster early one Sunday morning. I attracted disapproving looks from pious souls. Anyway, to end up here again was rather surprising.

I eventually reached Angel – you may recall that my first paid acting gig was near here. Despite my familiarity with the area, I wasn’t entirely sure how to get to the canal. Fortunately, this sign guided me. It may also explain some of the stranger sights coming up.

Isn’t this just the dearest little owl?

Spitalfields already? God be damned.

And Shoreditch! How we are honoured!

This is a nice thing to do with a block of council flats. Photographic portraits of local folk. It’s like Eastenders, only without the death and unimaginable horror.

Hackney. If you feel a chill down your spine, that is because we are but a stone’s throw from the Last Tuesday Society’s sinister museum.

A dilapidated narrowboat advocating the cleaning up of canals. This would be that famous bargees’ humour I’ve heard so much about.

Some sort of junction. Further investigation is required, I feel – especially as there’s something familiar about this canal here.

Lo the Isle of Dogs!

Herons are basically the easiest birds in the world to photograph. How I managed to make this one blurry enough to shame the most avid Bigfoot enthusiast is therefore beyond me.

I feel this toy boat has a story to tell.

We are so close, me hearties, I can practically taste that lime!

Is that not the viaduct of the London and Blackwall Railway?

It is! Limehouse! We made it! Long live, long live!

I say “we” made it, but mostly you just looked at photos. I didn’t want to make a big thing of this.

The Thames as the sun begins to set.

The Docklands Light Railway at Westferry. Everyone wants to get on the seats at the front of the train, but for a novel experience I recommend the seats at the back as you enter the tunnel for Bank. It’s like disappearing down a giant oesophagus.

 

Further Reading:

http://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/talk-about-burning-your-bridges/ - An earlier entry focusing on a particular part of the Regent’s Canal.

Why Pop?

Here’s a nice bit of folklore for you. If you were a child (I never was), you no doubt heard the nursery rhyme ‘Pop Goes the Weasel.’ But, ha ha, did you know that it originates in Hoxton? I know, it took me by surprise. Apart from anything else, I thought Hoxton was only founded about ten years ago.

Anyway, the version you’re probably familiar with goes:

Half a pound of tuppenny rice,

Half a pound of treacle,

That’s the way the money goes -

Pop goes the weasel!

It makes about as much sense as most nursery rhymes, i.e. almost none. How about if we take a look at the original lyrics?

Up and down the City Road,

In and out the Eagle,

That’s the way the money goes -

Pop goes the weasel!

Actually, that one doesn’t make much sense either on first reading. In fact, it looks like our protagonist is wandering around Hoxton in search of animal-based depravity of the lowest and most unspeakable nature.

However, the lyrics may be translated thus. Firstly, the City Road is, of course, in Hoxton (it runs roughly between Angel and Old Street Underground stations). The Eagle is not a perverted raptor, but a public house. Now it’s starting to make sense.

So, so far we have a protagonist trolling up and down the City Road and in and out of the Eagle, and that is the way the money goes. Now, that last line is still very silly. I’ve heard several explanations for it. Folk historians generally seem to agree that “pop” was slang for pawning or otherwise offering something up as collateral. The weasel is disputed. Pamela Shields’ mini-encyclopedia Essential Islington has it that “weasel” is a word for a flat-iron, but Albert Jack’s Pop Goes the Weasel asserts that it’s rhyming slang for “coat”, being short for “weasel and stoat.” One explanation suggests that the whole thing is a metaphor for the Gunpowder Plot, but this is just silly. And yet another explanation says that the whole thing is nonsense.

So really, pick an explanation. The rhyme first appeared in the mid-19th century, the pub having been opened in 1825. Even then, nobody was quite sure what it was on about. Something about not being a wino, I suppose.

Not a drop to drink

I had a bit of a serendipitous find the other day. I had decided, more-or-less on a whim, to go for a long walk on Monday. Good old bank holidays. I eventually decided to do what I’d been meaning to do for a while, and walk from Islington to Shoreditch. I’m familiar with both and their immediate surrounds, but I’d never “linked” the two.

Due to bloody engineering works, the bane of the random traveller’s life, I took the Victoria Line to Highbury & Islington and began my walk there. On the left you may see the abandoned station entrance. The present station entrance is of little interest to anyone. Incidentally, back in Yr. Humble Chronicler’s acting days, I used to use this station regularly to get to the King’s Head Theatre in Islington, where me show was on. Nothing to do with the entry, just thought I’d share.

I took a walk down towards Canonbury and in doing so, came across something I’ve been meaning to look for for months, but never got around to. I’m talking about this:

This is the New River. It’s not particularly new these days, nor has it ever technically been a river. It’s an artificial watercourse.

See, even in the seventeenth century, the expansion of London made it difficult to supply everyone with fresh water that was not contaminated with various nasties. So in 1606, an Act of Parliament was passed authorising the construction of a new river – the New River. I’m sure they thought long and hard about that name.

The river ran from Ware in Hertfordshire, taking a somewhat circuitous route due to the necessity of running downhill all the way, to reservoirs at Clerkenwell. It was eventually opened in 1613. The project was started by Edmund Colthurst, who ran into money troubles in 1609. Hugh Myddleton took over, only to run into money troubles himself and approach the extravagant King James I for a top-up. James agreed, on the condition that he receive a share of the profits.

Here is a fish I saw.

The venture was a success, so much so that it remains a significant part of London’s water supply up to the present day, having been taken over by the Metropolitan Water Board in 1904. After the Second World War, it was decided to take the Clerkenwell reservoirs out of use, but the river was instead diverted into the main water supply at Stoke Newington.

Probably the strangest use of the river was to flood the stage at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in order to stage “aqua drama.” This is not to be confused with what happens when you try to do the plumbing for yourself (“I mean, how hard can it be, right?”) but instead was a novel form of show set at sea. A notable production, The Siege of Gibraltar, featured 117 miniature ships with firing cannons, as well as child actors to represent drowning Spanish sailors. It’s just not the same with CGI.

Aqua drama at Sadlers Wells, circa 1808.