Tracking the Tube: Central Line 05: Liverpool Street to Leytonstone

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Weather: Sunny intervals and Warm
Distance Walked: 13.71 km
Distance By Tube: 10.45 km
Stations Visited: 6
Fantastic Place:The Hub Cafe in Victoria Park

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This walk took me out of "My London" into the East London Badlands! Some bits were familiar from the Capital Ring while most of the route was new. A walk of two halves, the first two thirds through interesting streets with lots of art, and large open parks. The last third a bit of a trudge through dull repetitive suburbs.

 

The Six Stations On The Walk

The walk started out in bright sunshine and the narrow canyons of financial London. There were some interesting sculptures near the old market buildings of Spitalfeilds; a goat and a family of elephants.

 This part of the walk and the whole of the leg to Bethnal Green is part of London I don't know at all, and I've lived in the city for 2/3 of my life. It is colourful and vibrant with a mix of buildings old and new. Lots of street art as well. This street scene is not far from the modern financial district with all the concrete and glass. Also at this point I'd like to say that Douglass Adams was wrong. In the Hitch-hiker's Guide series of books he postulated a Shoe Shop Intensifier ray that meant that shoe shops proliferated everywhere. He was wrong. It is coffee shops.

 

 

On almost every corner in this part of town there is a coffee shop, then a few doors down another one. And not just the chains, lots of cool, hip people sitting in small independent shops as well.

Possibly my favourite coffee shop name

 

 

 

Bethnal Green station is one of those that is totally below ground and was the site of one of the worst civilian tragedies during the war when 173 people including 62 children were killed in a crush when attempting to enter the unfinished station which was being used as an air-raid shelter.

A striking memorial with the names of the victims is at the entrance to a nearby park. The walk soon reaches a bridge over the Regents canal and the next stretch follows the canal south through the Mile End Park. This is a very pleasant spot with lots of birds on the water along with many colourful canal boats.

Crossing the busy Mile End Road via a green bridge I found Mile End station then turned back north following the east side of the park until I reached the Hertford Union canal - which joins the Regent Canal near this point. A smaller but no less attractive waterway. Waterways, be they natural or man made do add an air of calm to an city and I'm so glad many of them are being improved in London (though having been trapped by an enthusiast at an event near the Cotswold canal they can talk the hind legs off of a donkey!).

 

Victoria Park is a classic London Park. Big with lots of mature trees, wide paths and places for people to relax and children to play. Most importantly it has an awesome cafe at the centre ideal for hungry walkers to refuel before heading off on the next leg of the journey.

The next leg follows the Greenway which I last walked on the Capital Ring. It sits on the embankment that contains Joseph Bazalgette's Northern Outfall Sewer. Even if you didn't know this you could guess as there was a very strong stench of sewage in the air as I strolled along.

 

The last time I walked this the Olympic Stadium was being constructed for the 2012 Olympics. They have been and gone and now the stadium is home to West Ham. 

 

 

Building works caused a detour from the planned route here and a very tiresome walk alongside main roads towards Stratford Stadium. Lots of the Olympic arenas still stand and are used for sports and other events. Stratford station is very busy with lots of different lines converging and a major shopping mall. 

 

The walk from here through Leyton and Leytonstone was very dull, lots of very samish Victorian and Edwardian terraces and I was quite glad to see the last station on this leg. Even more pleased to see it had a water fountain so I could fill up my bottle as I had got quite thirsty.

 

Leytonstone station has a number of mosaics commemorating the films of Alfred Hitchcock who was born in Leytonstone.

The Birds

Rear Window

 

One feature of the walk I've not mentioned was the amount of vibrant street murals decorating buildings, even on quite grubby side streets. Here is a selection.

Also cats!

 

 

 

 

Tracking the Tube: Victoria Line 2: Walthamstow Central to Kings Cross

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Weather: Blooming Scorching!
Distance Walked: 17.85 km
Distance By Tube: 11.4 km
Stations Visited: 7
Fantastic Place: Woodberry Wetlands

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Only 7 stations so I've added the old H&I station for fun.

 

 

My tube walks are sadly becoming annual events rather than monthly as they used to be. I need to take time out to do more a year, perhaps shorter legs rather than the long ones I've done in the past. 

Today saw the completion of the Victoria Line and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found on this hot sunny summer day. Those of you paying attention may have notice that this year has been one of the hottest and driest on record (a week or so ago we hit 40c which was rather too warm for my tastes!). So the 27c temperature and clear blue skies were not a surprise, I was thankful for the modern water fountains installed by our current London mayor so I could top up my water bottle at regular intervals. Patches of grass on roadsides and parks were a uniform khaki colour and trees, especially horse chestnuts, were already shedding leaves.

The walk started in Walthamstow, former home of William Morris, there is still a museum dedicated to him near the start of the walk. One striking feature of the area are bollards.Most of them seem to have been dressed in woolly jumpers to protect them from the cold - they must have been sweltering in the heat!

Bollards keeping warm

Walthamstow - proud of its heritage

Just past Blackhorse Road station, where there are a lot of new residential tower blocks being built the route continues along a level, straight causeway between two large reservoirs, part of the Lee Valley Reservoir chain. These provide drinking water for London and are also now a important site for water birds such as cormorants. I could see there were footpaths leading around the edges of the water which may make for an interesting visit for the future. On the west side of the reservoirs is the Walthamstow Wetlands. Even from the side of the road I could see that this would be a great place to visit if you like wetlands and wildlife (also a nice looking waterside pub!).

 

Heron on guard duty

 More building and development could be seen near Tottenham Hale station and much light industrial. At this point I should mention that the stations on this leg are nothing to write home about architecturally - the 60's eh!

 

The next leg along Seven Sisters Road was fairly grim, I may have gained a kilo from all the pollution I breathed in so I was quite glad to turn off the road and go rural for a bit . In fact the next section was one of the best bits of any of my tube walks so far. The Woodberry Wetlands is a little lung in this polluted and overcrowded part of London. Two large reservoirs and waterways with birds and plants providing a welcome respite. It also provided lunch at the Coal House Cafe.  I had a very nice cup of coffee and a cheese and fig chutney toastie that set me up nicely for the rest of the walk. The cafe and the wetlands are well worth a visit and are only a short walk from Manor House station (Piccadilly Line - hmm perhaps I will pop in again when I do that line!)

 

The wetlands have been built in conjunction with a housing development, lots of flats with balconies overlooking the water and a rather nice water feature.

 

 

 

It was back to the Seven Sisters Road for the next station Finsbury Park and the more suburbia before a detour to one of the temples of football the old Arsenal football ground at Highbury (the other is of course the magnificence that is Fratton Park home of the mighty Pompey). Now converted to flats the listed stands still tower above the streets. Down the hill the new Emirates stadium can be glimpsed awaiting a future walk. 

 

The path continues through Highbury Fields, very nice open space but looking very scorched and brown in the sun at the moment. I then got rather twizzled around at Highbury and Islington station, the heat getting to me at last! The last few kilometres were a bit of a grind at the end of a long hot walk but I did pass through a very pretty square surrounded by flats, possibly Edwardian in age which had very nice Gothic details around the windows and doors. 

So that brings to an end the Victoria Line. Now to decide which of the remaining lines to do next and how to break them up in a sensible way!

 

Tracking the Tube: Victoria Line 1: Brixton to King's Cross

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Weather: Warm, Overcast, Humid
Distance Walked: 15.40 km
Distance By Tube: 9.85 km
Stations Visited: 10
Fantastic Place: GPO Tower

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Another strange year, but things seem to be getting back into some sort of order. As before, working five and sometimes six days a week mean that I have less time for walking. Especially during the spring and summer where the garden takes priority. 

I briefly considered trying to do the whole line in one go but soon realised that this wasn't going to work with me being out of practise so instead a walk from Brixton to King's Cross was planned.

Brixton was sunny, busy and buzzing. We tend to visit Brixton before catching a bus to the Dulwich Picture Gallery so the streets around the station are familiar. I've also been reading a book on the old river Effra that was converted into a sewer in the 18th and 19th century but still runs beneath the main Brixton road.

This part of London south of the river is one of 'my London' areas. I spent a lot of time working out of an office in Vauxhall and occasionally I would pop down to Stockwell to use the post office as that was the nearest to the office. There are some nice streets and houses in this area especially Lansdowne Circus with a nice green space and attractive mid-19th century houses.  

One of the highlights of this walk is the number of examples of great 20th century architecture. The first of these is the Stockwell Bus Garage which when it was built in the 1950s was the largest unsupported roof span in Europe.

Vauxhall cross and the area around it has changed a lot since when I worked here some five or six years ago. Long gone are the Cap Gemini offices, replaced by tower blocks and building sites. The area is now close to the American embassy and the Northern Line Extension stations down to Nine Elms and Battersea.

 

The bus station here is under threat which is a shame as it is an example of early 21st century design that has some merit.

Continuing across the Thames via Vauxhall Bridge, a route I used to take when visiting one of the clients I worked for while at Vauxhall and also when the tubes were playing up!

The area around Pimlico is also well known from visits to Tate Britain and it has an underpass with some good painted tile murals depicting art from the gallery. Victoria and the streets around the station were busy, almost as busy as normal and with the sun shining Westminster Cathedral looked very attractive in all it's stripy glory. The crowds were also present around Buck House taking photos and I couldn't help but join them!

Green Park was a breath of fresh air, the shaded walks offering some respite from the hot polluted air of this part of central London before tackling the area around the Royal Academy and the posh shopping streets of Bond Street and the less posh streets around Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street.

Continuing north it took me a little while to find the foot of the Post Office Tower, the close you get the harder it is to spot the tower (which for a long time was left off maps as a security measure) in the canyons of ugly mid century office blocks and shops. Eventually I found it in a narrow street and was surprised that such a narrow foundation could support the tall tower.

 

On the way to King's Cross I walked through the back streets away from the throngs along Euston Road and passed the Welcome Collection where they had a display of poems on the subject of COVID and the lock-down.

This leg of the walk ended at King's Cross and I'm already looking forward to the next stretch up towards Walthamstow. 

The walk was also notable for some great streat art.