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.

Talk about burning your bridges

There’s a rather pleasant bridge on the Regent’s Canal, a short distance beyond the Zoo as you go from Camden. It’s known as the Macclesfield Bridge or, unofficially, as the Blow-Up Bridge. The reason for this latter nickname is, surprisingly, because this one time it got blown up. Allow me to explain.

See, legislation in the 19th century concerning explosives seems to have been based not so much on the question, “How can we prevent accidents?” as “Has an accident happened yet?” If yes, consider legislation. If not, well, let’s not rock the boat. For example, into the mid-19th century, it was all-but-legal to manufacture fireworks in your own home. Technically it was illegal, but the law was never really enforced. An Act was passed to control explosives in 1860, but it was wholly inadequate – it only specifically covered gunpowder, not the newer and more powerful explosives that were starting to appear on the scene. And again, it was not properly enforced and therefore widely ignored. In 1864, an explosives factory at Erith went up. More than twelve workers were killed, but so complete was the explosion that the final death toll is unknown – a disembodied head was found in a garden a mile away and the explosion was heard fifty miles away. The blast actually produced a mushroom cloud. Subsequent investigation revealed that gunpowder was carried around the works in open wagons, workmen wore iron-soled shoes and used iron tools, barrels leaked and, most facepalm-worthy of all, people smoked inside the powder magazines. It wasn’t so much a case of determining a cause of the blast as determining which cause. It’s still not known, as anyone who saw what happened was part of the aforementioned mushroom cloud.

And so Parliament went back to the drawing board. A new Act was brought in in 1875, despite massive and predictable opposition from the explosives industry. Unfortunately, the Act came a little too late for the crew of the barge Tilbury.

The Tilbury was one of five barges being towed by the tug Ready along the Regent’s Canal up towards the Midlands. The barge was owned by the Grand Junction Canal Company, and was used for various general cargoes. On 2 October 1874, it had two cargoes in its hold. One was six barrels of petroleum, the other was five tons of gunpowder. That enough for you? The Ready was a steam tug and the Tilbury was the first barge in the convoy. Oh, and the crew were in the habit of lighting a fire in the cabin to keep warm.

Slightly before 5.00 AM, beneath Macclesfield Bridge, what now seems inevitable happened. The Tilbury exploded. The explosion was heard as far away as Woolwich, and buildings up to a mile away were damaged. The Tilbury and the Ready were obliterated, part of the latter’s keel being found embedded in the wall of a house 300 yards away. The second barge was sunk but, fortunately, the crew escaped with minor injuries. As you might imagine, the first two vessels’ crews were not so lucky, being killed instantly.

Among the many buildings damaged were the cages at London Zoo, with several exotic birds escaping. A detachment of soldiers from Albany Barracks soon arrived on the scene, though accounts differ as to whether this was to keep order, due to fear of a Fenian bomb attack or even to protect people from escaped wild beasts. The fire brigade also arrived, though by this stage all the damage that could be done had been done.

Major Vivian Majendie of the Royal Artillery carried out an investigation into the disaster, which came to the conclusion that a naked flame had ignited petrol vapour, triggering the explosion – it was known that the convoy had been stopped just before the bridge while the crew of the Ready investigated a blue flash seen aboard the Tilbury.

Macclesfield Bridge was demolished and sunk. The canal was drained while its rubble was recovered. However, Majendie remarked that while the damage was severe, it could have been a lot worse – fortunately, at that point, the canal passes through a cutting, which served to force the worst of the blast upwards. Given the amount the blast did do, the fact that it could have been worse doesn’t really bear thinking about. Majendie finished by observing that the incident proved the necessity of the forthcoming Act.

The canal was back in use four days later, and the bridge was, of course, rebuilt. But even now, it’s never quite managed to shake off the nickname of Blow-Up Bridge.

Pirates in Camden

I’m feeling rather Sunday today. Sort of washed-out, a little sleepy. You know how it is. Unfortunately, despite millennia of technological development, humanity has not reached the stage where this research will do itself, and so I had to make a trip up to good old Camden to pick up a particularly rare book. Well, it’s not particularly rare, but it’s usually particularly expensive.

I figured I’d take the Tube to Chalk Farm, which is closer to the Stables end of Camden and therefore means you don’t have to endure the two hundred thousand fifteen-year-old hipsters blocking the route from Camden Town Tube to Camden Lock like the androgynous undead. You also get to avoid the endless parade of shops selling exactly the same range of hats and T-shirts, manned by hard-sell merchants who will not rest until they’ve either sold you an overpriced crappy hat or you bludgeon them into unconsciousness.

Having picked up my book, I thought I’d have a bit of a stroll around, see what there was to see, pick up a bite to eat. Now, I’ve always known Camden was a bit touristy, but I didn’t realise quite how touristy it’s become until I saw the rebuilt Camden Canal Market, or Camden Lock Village as it’s now known. Here’s how touristy it’s become:

Camden Lock Village – your one-stop shop for Union Jack-slathered shit. If you looked at a souvenir stand under a microscope and discovered a tiny nano-civilisation living there, it would look like this. Nice one, Camden. Keep this up and you can be the next Carnaby Street. Carnaby Street today, that is.

The Stables market has also undergone some rebuilding, and is now filled with identikit clothing stands, food stalls that look like something out of Blade Runner and, for some reason, anatomically correct horse sculptures. Presumably to remind you that not only was this place once a stabling point for railway horses, but those horses all had genitalia and don’t you forget it.

On an unrelated note, I spotted this graffiti in the old Lock Market:This was scrawled on to the railway bridge. I love the idea that someone was so very passionate about conveying the suggestion that Ms Winehouse is, in fact, an “AIDS whore,” that they had to climb all the way on to that railway bridge to do it. I mean, most people just troll YouTube. I’m not entirely clear what the author means by “AIDS whore.” At the risk of being pedantic, the medical profession prefers the term “late-stage HIV” to prevent confusion over the nature of the disease. THE MORE YOU KNOW.

Also, on a little tangent, there are three types of people who use the term “whore” non-ironically:

1. People who need to get laid.

2. People who wish they were getting laid.

3. People who wish they were getting laid by the person they’re accusing of being a whore, because god dammit, she gives it out to everyone else, why not him?

On another tangent, did you know that Chalk Farm Station has the longest frontage of any Tube station? It has the classic Leslie Green-designed red tiled exterior common to the Tube stations owned by Charles Yerkes, but  due to the shape of the site, it just goes on and on and on. I like it. It’s something a bit different from the norm. It’s not that I dislike the other Green-designed Tube stations, but let’s be honest, they’re a bit samey.

In the last entry I promised you pirates. Well, I vaguely suggested pirates as a possibility. So here you go.

Not only pirates, but pirates in a castle as well.

The man responsible for the building on the left – indirectly – went by the full title of Viscount St Davids, Jestyn Reginals Austine Plantagenet Phillips. You know you’re posh when your name requires a comma. His mother, by the way, was known as Baroness Strange of Knokin, Hungerford and De Moleys. I strongly suspect they just make these titles up in the hope that people are either too awed or too disgusted to check up on them. Anyway, St Davids was an eccentric aristocrat who, in political terms, never really amounted to much. He only really spoke in the House of Lords on such important matters as the question of whether trick-or-treating was strictly legal – a matter that seems to have given him considerable concern. He subscribed to the Times purely to provide papier mache for the scenery on his model railway (if it had been the Daily Mail, I could have made another cheap joke at the expense of my least favourite paper, so bad form there, St Davids).

His major passion, though, seems to have been messing about with boats. His first commercial venture was running barge trips on the Regent’s Canal, which bankrupted him. Following this disappointment, he ran away to sea as a deckhand. Some time after his return, he took to living in a barge at Paddington and then to a house backing on to the Regents Canal in Camden. So it will come as no surprise that when he turned his hand to charity, it would be something nautical.

It all started when a group of children asked the Viscount, “Can we row your boat, mister?” St Davids was happy to oblige and, unlike the custom of the present day, the children did not smack him into the canal with an oar and steal the boat. They returned with friends, who brought more friends and soon the Viscount found himself occupied acquiring and restoring more boats – usually damaged and unwanted examples.

In 1966, the Pirate Club was formally founded in a narrowboat which, in characteristic fashion, was brought to Camden and restored by the Pirates themselves, along with members of the local community and material assistance from British Waterways in the form of wooden pilings. To this day, the Club provides a valuable and educational local resource for children who want to mess around in boats. The Viscount died in 1991, but left a legacy to be proud of.

Why the Pirate Club? Well, obviously, because kids think pirates are cool. But it’s also worth noting that Viscount St David’s eccentricity extended to his appearance. He was missing a number of teeth and walked with a pronounced limp. It was perhaps inevitable that, among the local children, he acquired the nickname of “Pegleg”…

Further Reading

http://www.thepiratecastle.org/index.htm - The Pirate Club’s website