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.

Funny green buildings

This is the 200th entry for London Particulars and, in celebration, I intend to do nothing special whatsoever.

Instead, I’d like to talk about the funny little building you see on the right there and its brethren. There are a few of these dotted around, looking like “miniature cricket pavilions” in the words of Alf Townsend, whose book The Black Cab Story has provided a lot of the information in this entry.

This one is at Temple. Twelve others survive, including the original at Wellington Place in St John’s Wood.

As the name suggests, they are shelters for taxi drivers. They pre-date the invention of the motor taxi, with the first appearing in 1875. The hansom cabs were much more open to the elements than the modern taxi, and so waiting on the rank in the worst excesses of a London winter was not an attractive prospect. Under such conditions, the more popular option was to nip into the pub. The newspaper editor Captain Armstrong, who lived in St John’s Wood, was appalled that they had to resort to such measures (although the way the story is told, it sounds like he might have been equally appalled by an inability to get a taxi in a hurry) and so set up the London Cabmen’s Shelter Fund with the help of various wealthy individuals, including the then-Prince of Wales.

The distinctive buildings were designed to be no larger than the parking space for a horse and hansom. From 1882, they incorporated a kitchen (hence that jaunty little cupola on the top) providing much-appreciated cups of tea, bacon sarnies and the like.

In typically Victorian fashion, despite the utilitarian purpose of the shelters, close inspection will reveal a surprising amount of architectural detail. For instance, the panels above the windows feature delightful patterns cut into the woodwork. How much these holes in the walls were appreciated in winter is sadly unrecorded.

The Chelsea Embankment shelter

Comparison between the Temple example and the Chelsea Embankment one on the left will show that there were various detail differences from shelter to shelter, perhaps due to the fact that they were built over several decades.

The last went up in 1914, by which time 47 existed. What eventually did for them, or at least 34 of them, was Progress. As roads were rebuilt and new traffic systems were implemented, the cabmen’s shelters tended to get in the way and so were mostly got rid of.

Example in South Kensington. Note the patterns cut into the wood.

Ironically, two of the survivors should perhaps have been demolished. The Chelsea shelter, known to cabbies as “The Pier,” was hit by a lorry and wrecked, but fortunately has since been rebuilt. The one in Leicester Square would have been demolished when the square was pedestrianised, but was instead moved to Russell Square, where it may be seen today.

Those that remain are, happily, Grade II listed. The Cabmen’s Shelter Fund, with English Heritage and the Heritage of London Trust, keeps them in good order.

Though they’re not as well-known as their friends the red telephone boxes or the black cabs they serve, they’re every bit as deserving of recognition as an icon of London.

Further Reading

http://www.london-footprints.co.uk/artcabshelters.htm - Lots of information here, along with a list of all the survivors and their locations.