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.

Through the ruins

I’d like to take you on a voyage through time and space to this time a week ago when boredom and the vague desire to do a particular thing intersected, resulting in my finally getting around to visiting the revamped Museum of London.

Really, given the amount of time and effort I spend researching (if you can call it research) the history of London, this ought to be my favourite museum. Unfortunately, I have in recent years found it a little frustrating – there’s no denying that it has some very fine exhibits, but so many times I’ve dropped in on a whim only to discover that half the place is closed off.

Unlike the museums of South Kensington or the British Museum, the Museum of London is located on the edge of the old City. The City is, frankly, not the liveliest of places at weekends. On the left you see the Bank of England, practically deserted.

Rather than change trains for the sake of going one stop to St Paul’s, the closest stop to the Museum, I tend to get off at Bank. Bank is perhaps my least favourite Tube station, consisting as it does of seemingly miles of crowded pedestrian tunnels where the going is always slow and the temperature is always too hot for comfort. Like many similar stations, Bank was not originally intended as an interchange – rather, it happens to be a desirable place for a railway company to serve. The idea that passengers might want to change between Central, District, Circle, Northern and Waterloo and City Lines without ascending to street level was a bit of an afterthought, and the Docklands Light Railway even more so. I’m told that Bank Station is haunted – commuters and late-night staff have reported a strange and unearthly presence, a feeling of unease as if they are being watched. I suspect further investigation would reveal a piece of electrical equipment vibrating at a frequency of 17Hz to 19Hz, but then I’m no expert.

The area was more-or-less empty apart from a few bewildered-looking tourists. My trusty street atlas let me down, as several of the roads that in theory were quick routes to the Museum were in practice gated off. Roads like the one on the right. This is exactly the sort of thing that Woody Guthrie was complaining about. At this point, someone normally tells me to get an iPhone and I normally say “No thank you, I would far rather spend the money on opium and whores.”

Eventually, and somewhat unexpectedly, I came to Moorgate station. Had I known how close this was to the museum, I would most certainly have alighted here rather than Bank.

Instead, I climbed up to the highwalks of the Barbican. I don’t know why, given my hatred of Brutalist architecture, but there’s something I find strangely compelling about the Barbican Estate. It’s got a weird, retro-futuristic desolation about it. I think I’d like to make a film just so I could film something there. I’m not the only person who thinks it’s alright, as the whole place has been Grade II listed.

And yet, despite the absolutely 1960s/70s look of the place, you get odd little pockets of the ancient city peeping through. For instance, this section of the medieval City Walls that survives. There are a number of other medieval fortifications around here, not least of which is the section of wall outside the Museum of London itself. These were built, as you might imagine, on the old Roman walls.

I must admit that I’m a little loath to go into massive detail about the Museum itself, as I fear I would snap up about eight entries’ worth of information. However, the World City galleries were what I was here for, so I suppose I probably ought to talk a bit about those.

"People called Romans, they go, to the house?"

These galleries cover the city from the rebuilding in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London to the present day. This was when the city really took shape – indeed, I would go further and say that it’s really in the last 200 years that the city took on its modern form. This was when the Docklands appeared, when the city expanded to absorb Westminster, Kensington, Islington, Southwark and the suburbs, when industry brought people flooding in from the countryside and, in the second half of the twentieth century, when the city developed its modern ethnic makeup.

The new galleries are certainly impressive – large amounts of exhibition space are devoted to subjects such as pleasure gardens, fashion, ethnic and civil tensions and entertainment. The old star exhibits – the Victorian street scene and the frankly tasteless Lord Mayor’s carriage – are still there, and there’s even a gallery of London art from the 19th century to the present day. I was quite excited by the puppets of Andy Pandy and Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men, who I recall watching as a small child (lest you think this to be an anachronism, I should point out that I saw them on video). I also noted the same edition of The Alternative Guide to London as I own on display in the 1960s cabinets, which was cool.

After finishing up, I had a stroll in the direction of Spitalfields for no particular reason. I’ve not really explored this area – passed through several times, but never had a proper footle around.

Spitalfields Market looked interesting, so I headed in that direction. It’s a fine place for fashionable folk, I have no doubt, but I found it a little too glossy if you know what I mean. I like those markets that are a bit illogical. Still, worth bearing in mind if you’re looking for presents. I must confess to indulging my sweet tooth at a fudge stall, where I purchased some rather decadent chocolate chilli fudge. I was also rather tempted by the fudge containing marshmallows, but let’s not be silly here.

Late on a Sunday afternoon is perhaps not the best time to come upon Brick Lane Market, so perhaps it can be forgiven for not quite matching up to my expectations. But I couldn’t help noticing that much of what was on sale was identical to what I’d seen in Spitalfields Market less than half an hour previously. Come to think of it, quite a lot of it was identical to the stuff I’d seen in Camden the day before. This and the sheer volume of East End hipsters led me to head off in the direction of Shoreditch High Street. From there to Old Street and a Tube home.

I think I’ll finish where I started – in the deserted City. In the Museum of London, there’s a display made up of status updates, tweets etc. from Londoners’ social networking sites, and this one particularly struck home:

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.