Weather: Blooming Hot!
Distance Walked: 17.7 km
Distance By Tube: 10.2 km
Stations Visited: 11
Fantastic Place: Grunwick Mural @ Dollis Hill Station
It's just about a year since I walked the previous leg of the Jubilee Line - as I mentioned before I now work five, sometimes six days a week so the frequency that I can walk for pleasure has gone down. The brightest amongst you will have noticed that this leg is walked the wrong way - I have been walking east to west but this one goes from west to east. Two reasons for this - I didn't thing Neasden was going to be a pleasant place to stop for lunch and I needed to pick up some emergency supplies from Games Workshop in town so those two factors suggested a switch-a-roonie of the route. I won't let it happen again!
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| The Stations en-route |
So on one of the hottest days of one of the hottest days on record I set off to sunny Neasden. The start of the walk took me through some rather grimy industrial areas including several skip hire companies - they have to be based somewhere I suppose and the proximity to the North Circular is a probable draw. While I worked on the LUL IT systems back around the millennium I paid a visit to the Neasden depot and was shown the only level crossing on the London Underground network. Ok, it's in the depot but it is a proper level crossing with lights and barriers.
All I knew about Dollis Hill was that one of my favourite guitarists
Steve Hackett and his brother John lived there for a time, it's the sort of place you flash through on the tube without looking up. Having now walked through it my opinion has been revised, it is in fact, quite attractive with the large Gladstone Park on the north side of the railway a key feature.
Just by the station is a large mural commemorating the
Grunwick Strike which by one of those strange coincidences took place in 1976 the famous long hot summer of my childhood against which all other summers have been judged. Along with the Miners' strike which took place during my time studying geology in Cardiff (went down a coal mine the week before the strike and this made me realise what a hot, hard and horrendous job the miners did), has coloured my political thinking ever since.
The majority of the area is nice Edwardian terraces and semi-detached houses along quiet leafy streets seemingly populated solely by cats! Between Dollis Hill and Willesden Green, I saw at least four cats sunning themselves in gardens, on walls and even in the middle of the road.
I had confused Willesden Green with the grotty Willesden Junction (of many a delayed journey into work fame) and was therefore pleasantly surprised again by the surroundings of this majestic station. Opposite the station was an appropriately cat themed mural.
More pleasant suburban streets stretched out between Willesden Green and Kilburn - I suppose I shouldn't be surprised as we aren't that far from Hampstead - in fact, some of the older tiled street signs still said Hampstead rather than Camden on them.
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| View down the tracks towards Kilburn |
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| Bowls Club Clubhouse |
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The busy interchange at Kilburn stands on the A5 which is named here Shoot-Up Hill and has multiple viaducts casting welcome shadows over the station opposite which were more
murals.
The next stretch along the former Roman road which is now the A5 was hot and busy even though it was only just 10am so turning off and walking through the leafy Kilburn Grange Park was a nice relief. Another cat, this one in a shady catbox on the steps outside its house, was enjoying a doze in the sun before a stretch of uphill walking brought me to West Hampstead station near which is Lillian Baylis house, the rehearsal rooms for the English National Opera.
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| Nice Orange Saab - Classic |
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| Hampstead Street Art? Owl or Ironing Board? |
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| The Swiss Cottage |
The next stretch felt familiar from many days of playing D&D with my Hampstead pals and a stretch of the busy Finchley Road down to the odd Swiss Cottage. Stuck in the middle of a traffic island between the A41 and the Finchley Road it looks a bit lost and difficult to photograph.
The next stretch continued southwards through ever nicer streets towards St John's Wood which has the most totally tropical tube station I've ever seen.
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| The Famous Abbey Road Zebra Crossing |
Continuing westward for s a stretch I saw large crowds standing by a zebra crossing and was momentarily puzzled before recognising this as the Abbey Road crossing made famous by the 1960's beat combo known as The Beatles. I'm not a fan myself but I know my sisters are (I think they may have seen them once but I am sure they will correct me if I'm wrong). If I had to drive through here on a regular basis I would get very peed off as there are always people crossing, pausing for their photo (with the photographer often standing in the middle of the road), then crossing back again! The Abbey Road studios are just a little way along the road surrounded by a white wall covered in graffiti.
Continuing south I passed Lord's cricket ground - it is surprisingly understated combared to the red brick edifice at the Kennington Oval. The high wall prevents any glimpse of the hallowed turf (apart from a glimpse through the turnstiles) and the only hint that something lurks beyond is the modern media center that looms over the wall like one of the Martian space craft in War of the Worlds or
The Tripods.
More crowds surround the entrance to the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street - the queues stretch back from the museum all the way to the tube station, many of them tourists who are probably disapointed not to experience a true pea-souper or a trip in a Hansom cab.
After a lunch stop in the busy shopping streets south of the Maylebone road I braved the heaving hordes of Oxford street for a quick glimpse of Bond Street station before detouring to the Warhammer shop on Tottenham Court Road before heading south and west once more to reach the end of this leg of my Jubilee walk at Green Park. Hopefully it won't be a yeat before I complete this line - only a few stations to go now from Neasden to Stanmore.
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| Bubbles at Fortnum and Masons |
