Tracking the Tube: Jubilee Line 01: Stratford to Canary Wharf

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Weather: Scorchio! Wall to wall sunshine, blue skies and little wind
Distance Walked: 28.3km
Distance By Tube:6.54km
Stations Visited: 5
Fantastic Place: Cutty Sark, Greenwich

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The Jubilee Line it is then. This walk will take me back to one of the first places I worked after leaving teaching and starting in the IT industry as well as visiting one of my favourite parts of London.







I decided to walk the line from East to West as I had just finished the Northern Line walk in the rather drab north west suburbs and I fancied a change to somewhere more dynamic hence the long Central Line trip from west London all the way out to the Stratford.

Just 5 Stations this time

This area has seen a lot of developments in the past decade with the London Olympics being held nearby in 2012 and so transport links and other infrastructure was upgraded. Stratford station is buried underneath a huge shopping centre and it took me a while to work out which way to go eventually crossing the sub-urban rail lines via a steal and glass bridge which offered views of some of the Olympic buildings.

Heading south towards West Ham station I took care not to retrace too many of my steps that I had trodden on my District Line walk but this was fairly easy as the two lines are pretty much perpendicular at this point. Continuing south the walk follows the DLR line for this part of the walk. When I first started working in the Canary Wharf area back in the mid 90s there was no Jubilee Line and the DLR only ran until about 6pm and then only from Bank or Tower Gateway to Canary Wharf. We in the office joked that DLR stood for Doesn't Like Rain as it seemed to stop working in the lightest shower. Other people called it the Toytown Railway and although when it started it appeared unreliable and infrequent it now is a major part of the tube network.

The Orbit Tower

I read somewhere that the DLR journey through Docklands is one of the top-ten rail journeys in the world! Not sure about that but my young god-twins like pretending to drive the train by sitting at the front. Ok so do I when I get the chance.

Canning Town interchange  is a sprawling unremarkable building sharing facilities with buses and the DLR. Lots of busy roads in the area as well making it a bit unpleasant to walk through.

I could have followed the lines of the old docks eastward here out to the University of East London and City Airport but I'd already walked that way on the LOOP and I may go back there again if I walk the DLR as a line. Instead I treated myself to a flight on the Dangleway or as it is more properly known the Emirates Air Line cable car that crosses the Thames from near the Royal Victoria Dock to North Greenwich near the O² centre.

I've been on the cable car at sunset and in some ways that is better as the more attractive bits of the view are lit up while the scrap yards and waste recycling areas are dark. However on a crystal clear day like today the view was splendid.

View down towards City airport with a boat docked near the ExCel centre.

 I've not explored the North Greenwich peninsula before - never had the need to go to a gig at the O²  for example - and it is a strange mix. The area around the station and the former Millennium Dome is all very modern, clean and tidy with shops, bars and places to eat.

But is it art?

Move a short distance away to the west and things change. Here the area is still a work in progress with areas of fenced off wasteland and piles of broken up stone and gravel. There are also some art installations including this odd electricity pylon.

In places along the Thames Path the trail is blocked as large blocks of flats are being flung up to make the most of the views from the waterside location. This caused some annoyance as I missed a sign saying that the path was diverted while building was going on and ended up having to retrace my steps for some distance and then had to walk along the busy arterial roads instead. However I did come across the Meantime Brewery which does tours and has a tasting room. Hmm might have to pay a visit at some point so the diversion was all bad news!

The next section of the walk took me through Greenwich, one of my favourite bits of London especially the older part with the Maritime Museum, the Observatory on the Hill and some nice shopping and eating places.
After a break for lunch (a very nice burger and shake at GBK in Greenwich - very friendly staff and great food as normal) a stroll around the outside of the Cutty Sark followed. I've been on-board and underneath the old tea-clipper in the past and if you are in the area it is well worth the visit.

Cutty Sark

Then under the river via the Greewnwich Foot Tunnel built at the turn of the twentieth century, with the curvature of the tunnel as it descends then ascends again on the northern side of the Thames it feels a bit like the inside of a space-station (a damp and slightly tatty one it has to be said).

On the north side of the big bend in the Thames is the Isle of Dogs. Walking up past Island Gardens through a nice park where an enthusiastic cricket game was being played, then up along tree lined streets with towering glass and steel monoliths behind in Mudchute then over some of the old docks into what is now one of the financial hubs of London and Europe. This is where I worked for about a decade supporting the IT systems of one of the major suppliers of metropolitan subterranean transport. So much has changed in the ten years since I left that project. Some of the buildings that were new then have been knocked down and replaced by newer ones, sometimes offices but more appear to be hotels and housing (not sure how much is affordable for the people who lived and worked in the area before the finance houses moved in). Our old office building looked deserted and due to be pulled down. The pub we went to after work (and where I had an unscheduled stag night a couple of days before my wedding) has long gone.

There are still buildings going up in the high-rise core of the area and the streets and shops in the shopping complex under and around One Canada Square were busy. I was planning to walk along the eastern side of the Isle of Dogs return through the foot tunnel and then on to Canada Water but with the high temperatures and the long detour on the Thames Path earlier I decided to end here do a bit of shopping at Waitrose (of course!) and then start the next leg of the walk here.

Old and new meet at the water's edge

Thames wherry

More Dallas than Isle of Dogs