Yesterday I had visitors. My brother and two nephews came down from Norfolk, by coach, to spend the day in London. Fortunately the weather forecast was mostly wrong and, after an initial drizzling, we were barely dampened all day. First stop was a Thames-side attraction I'd never visited before - most enjoyable, and which I'll tell you about another day. Second stop the ImperialWarMuseum, with lots of murderous weaponry to explore and plenty of interest to see. And third stop the Dome.
Well, that was the plan anyway. But London had other ideas. Because attempting to get around the capital by public transport at weekends can be a nightmare. From Lambeth to North Greenwich is less than five miles as the crow flies - should be easy enough, you'd think. Indeed five miles in Norfolk is a doddle of a journey, by car obviously, and would probably take no more than ten minutes. But SE1 to SE10, armed only with a travelcard, is quite another matter. We failed, utterly, lengthily, miserably.
So there we were outside the Imperial War Museum on Lambeth Road, attempting to work out an appropriate route to the Dome. Jubilee line, obviously, from nearby Waterloo or Southwark all the way to our destination. Except there was planned engineering work on the line and services were suspended between Green Park and North Greenwich, so that was out. Replacement bus services were operating... but only to Canada Water, and not from nearby, so no use there either. FAIL
Alternative tube route, then. Lambeth North to Embankment, then a slow chug east to West Ham, then Jubilee to North Greenwich. Except that this meandering journey heads in the wrong direction at least twice and looked like it would take forever. And anyway, my 9-year-old nephew had had enough of walking the streets by this time and wasn't keen on even a mild trudge back to the nearest station. FAIL
Bus, then. Only two routes run immediately past the museum, neither of which appeared to go anywhere useful. A careful look at the spider map at the bus stop revealed further routes, but again no obvious North Greenwich connection. I've since discovered there was a bus to the Dome running a few streets away, at Elephant and Castle, but at the time the Lambeth North spider map revealed nothing of the 188 so we completely overlooked it. If only TfL still produced proper street maps at bus stops, but no, we get the condensed summary for thick people. FAIL
River, then. A ride along the Thames to the Dome ticks lots of tourist boxes, and was a definite favourite with my vistors. So we took the bus to Bankside and walked down the pier to await the next eastbound service. Waiting passengers clustered around the boarding ramp, making no attempt at a queue (neither were there any railings to encourage us to line up, nor any employees on the pier to keep order). When the packed Thames Clipper finally arrived it was ten passengers off and ten passengers on, so only the most forceful managed to get on board. We didn't. The next boat would be just as full, we thought, and there were no clues how long we'd have to wait because the pier's electronic indicator was reporting fictional arrivals. At the weekend these catamaran services are an unpredictable unreliable raffle. FAIL
So, despite protestations, we decided to walk to the nearest tube station. Across the Millennium Bridge to St Paul's, a bit of a trek but a mighty scenic route all the same. But when we finally arrived we discovered the gates to the station firmly locked. Bugger. I'd checked the weekend engineering update on the TfL website before setting out but I'd missed the small print that St Paul's station was closed due to refurbishment works. We should have gone to Mansion House in the first place but, of course, on the tube map that's not geographically obvious. FAIL
At this point we completely changed our plans and headed instead into the West End for food. By bus from St Paul's to the Strand, what could possibly go wrong? But one stop from success our 23 suddenly veered right to avoid a closed street and eventually dumped us more than half a mile from where we wanted to be. No advance warning to disgruntled passengers, just an automated "This bus is on diversion" after it was too late. FAIL
We'd spent two hours traipsing around London getting absolutely nowhere, beset by engineering disaster, inadequate information and organisational mismanagement. Because sometimes, especially at weekends, London's transport is unutterably incompetent. And when you're only in town for a weekend, it's a shame to have it unnecessarily wasted.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Did you ever wonder how and why some of London's buses are numbered with letters? On the day that the S2 disappears, here's an answer. Three months ago David Brake forwarded me an email from Peter Osborn, who runs Red-RF.com, giving detailed information about the genesis of lettered bus routes. I reproduce this below, with thanks (and it now appears on Red-RF.com in the London Transport route numbering section).
The infamous Bus Reshaping Plan of 1968 made major upheavals to long-standing patterns of service and introduced areas of 'flat-fare' operation (now that all London bus journeys cost the same, it is easy to forget that crews used to have to cope with complex fare charts for each route). These were numbered with a letter prefix based on the area, thus starting with the W series and moving on to include Peckham, Ealing and so on.
The idea behind Reshaping was to replace parts of the bus network with a 'hub & spoke' arrangement, shortening trunk routes and providing high-capacity local links. At the same time, many suburban routes were converted to one-man operated buses. The high-capacity routes were 'flat-fare' - i.e. the same price for any distance, and used automatic fare machines on buses designed to carry large numbers of standing passengers. The Plan was a response to increasing staff problems and financial constraints at London Transport.
Implementation started in September 1968 in the Wood Green area (W routes W1 to W6 initially) and at Walthamstow (linked with the opening of the Victoria Line), where only one new service was flat-fare, the W21. The Wood Green area stretched from Crouch End to Edmonton, and encompasses today's routes W1 to W10. The Walthamstow area covers today's W11 to W19.
Reshaping, as first tried, was a disaster. Too much changed too quickly, the buses were too long for some of the roads and were unreliable, as was the fare equipment. And passengers didn't like standing. But the staffing and cost reasons behind all this were irrefutable, and then Ken Livingstone came along with Fare's Fair, so over time the old variable fares died out, first by fixed-fare zones then London-wide. One-man (later one-person) operation became inevitable, although some would argue the jury is still out on the efficiency of OPO on high-frequency trunk routes.
So the area schemes continued to be rolled out. Ealing (E routes), Peckham (P routes, even though P1, P2 and later P4 didn't go to Peckham), Morden (M routes) and Harrow (H routes) appeared by 1969. But the rot had set in - the Harrow scheme was a shadow of the original proposal and Woolwich and Romford schemes never got off the ground. A limited Croydon scheme (C routes, later abandoned) went ahead in 1970 and some Stratford (S) routes in 1971. Later schemes were the Bexley area (B routes), Docklands (D routes), Hounslow (H20 upwards), Kingston (K routes) Orpington (R routes for 'Roundabout', the group name) and Uxbridge (U routes).
Later examples of prefix route numbers tended to be local, rather tortuous routes, introduced to get buses into streets not previously served. This trend started with the minibus services in 1973 - see this link for more detail (it explains the C11) - and continued with the likes of Sutton services (S routes, including S3 which was previous used at Stratford) and Richmond routes (R68 etc). There are still oddities, like G1, presumably named after St Georges Hospital for which it's a local service, and the PR and RV routes which I mention at the end of the article on my site.
Thanks Peter. He recommends LOTS as the source of real information on the subject. I've now had a go at summarising London's current lettered buses in the table below.
Back in the mid 18th century, every first Friday in July, much of east London decamped to the Essex countryside for a drunken knees-up. They headed to Fairlop, near Hainault, to feast and be merry under a great tree - the Fairlop Oak. Its branches were said to cast a midday shadow 300 feet in circumference, covering roughly an acre of land, and a seething mass of booths and stalls were laid out beneath its mighty span. This was Fairlop Fair, and over the decades it grew from a simple annual picnic into a tumultuous alcoholic riot. I'm not going to tell you the fair's full fascinating story, because you can readaboutthat elsewhere. But it all began with a man buying bacon and beans for his friends.
The Fairlop Oak no longer stands. It was an extremely old tree even in the 1700s, and gradual decay set in as further years passed by. Huge branches broke free, the hollow trunk was burnt out by irresponsible picknickers, and gales in 1820 brought the remaining wood toppling to the ground. The fair continued nearby but it was never quite the same, and events dribbled to a close at the turn of the 20th century.
Visit the site of Fairlop Fair today, just off Forest Road in the borough of Redbridge, and you'll find a very different place of entertainment. A flooded landfill site has become a centre for watersports, on which brave boarders sail and in which silent anglers dangle. The water's edge is surrounded by a very suburban golf course, and the Fairlop Waters bar and restaurant serves up beer and spicy food to keen clubbers. Peer through the large glass windows and you can see the golf widows beached on the bright red sofas, waiting patiently for their beloveds to return from a lengthy 18-hole round. And not just on the first Friday in July, but every day of the week. Alas the tin hut hosting Al's Adventure House has closed down due to lack of investment, and visiting children no longer run beneath the waving alligator to enjoy two hours of playtime fun. No longer is this a debauched hotbed of annual East End revelry, more a conservative sport and steakhouse hideaway.
But the past hasn't been completely forgotten. Walk west instead of east from Fairlop station and you'll reach the roundabout at Fulwell Cross. The most impressive sight here is the copper blancmange library, but look instead to the grass circle at the heart of the fiveways junction. Here, in 1951, a replacement Fairlop Oak was planted to commemmorate the festival of Britain. A plaque on the wall of the local oak-themed Wetherspoons remembers the old tree as well as the new. This replacement Quercus robur has grown quite a bit in the last 50 years, and now stands proudandtall amidst the traffic at the top of Barkingside High Road. I doubt very much that any East End revellers will journey to Fairlop today and cross to the central reservation to merrymake beneath its branches. But do raise a First Friday glass tonight for London's drunken heritage, for the right to party, and for Fairlop Fair.
Bus S2: Clapton - Stratford Location: London east Length of journey: 6 miles, 40 minutes
It's not the loveliest bus journey in the world. Clapton's Murder Mile, Hackney Wick and the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road. You won't find London's rich and well-to-do riding this overcrowded backstreet route. But it has its moments. A Tudor National Trust townhouse, the birthplace of plastic, and a sulphurous trade union crucible - this bus passes them all. It's the S2, and it dies tomorrow.
For me, the S2 has three particularly interesting features. Firstly it's one of London's lettered bus services, the sole remaining outpost of Stratford's dwindled 'S' empire. More of that shortly, if you're patient. Secondly it's one of those buses that goes on a big loopy detour to eventually get back to somewhere it's already been. In this case that's a diversion to Bromley-by-Bow station and the nearby Tesco, much to the annoyance of any through travellers who get to spend seven unnecessary minutes of their life on an arterial road (or considerably longer if the traffic's bad). And thirdly the S2 is one of my local buses, a unique link to the heart of Hackney, in which I therefore have a personal interest. Especially now its days are numbered. Two.
From Saturday, TfL are instigating a major reorganisation of buses in the Bow area. They describe their new plans as "improved bus services", although I'm not wholly convinced. They even describe their changes as "enhancements". Yes, that's not a good sign, is it? Here are the plans.
Of all the buses I might have hoped they'd switch, alas, the bendy buses on route 25 aren't included and will continue to blunder along Bow Road unaltered. But they'll now have competition from a brand new route, the 425, giving a more pleasant alternative to articulated transportation. Although only from Stratford as far as Mile End station. Then the 425 turns right and follows route 277 north through Victoria Park and on to Clapton. The full journey from Stratford to Clapton is less than three miles as the crow flies, but the 425 travels twice as far. And TfL are scheduling this mysterious dog-leg route, which goes nowhere new, with a full double decker allocation. Only time will tell if passenger numbers justify their optimism.
And then there's the 276. This Newham to Stoke Newington service used to run through what is now the Olympic Park construction site. Obviously that journey would now be an unacceptable security risk, so for the last year the bus has been diverted up the A12 via Fish Island. But not for much longer. From Saturday it'll be re-diverted, even further from its original route, following the current S2 through Bow. This may not be good news for long distance travellers, but it gives me yet another way to get to southeast Hackney. I used to have only one direct route to Homerton Hospital, and imminently I'll have three. I just can't imagine needing the choice.
And finally, what of the demise of the S2? Overnight tomorrow it'll lose its letter and be reborn in decapitated form under a new route number, 488. That's almost as high as regular London bus numbers go, signifying an unimportant afterthought of a service. This instant irrelevance is what happens when you cut off the last mile and a half of the bus route, the bit that went to Stratford, the bit that made the journey useful. Southbound buses will now terminate in Bromley-by-Bow, a place that few Hackney residents feel a burning desire to visit. The 488 will be a runty little bus, running less frequently than the S2, carrying fewer people, to nowhere special. And it's got the elderly shoppers of E3 up in arms.
Roman Road's only decent supermarket closed down a couple of years ago, and nearby residents were forced to seek their weekly groceries elsewhere. Never mind, said local councillors, because there's a bus to the Tesco superstore in Bromley-by-Bow and you can go there instead. The S2 is therefore a lifeline to older shoppers, shuffling onto the bus with their single carrier bag and alighting immediately outside the supermarket's front door. Even better, returning S2s leave from exactly the same bus stop beside the trolley park. That loop round Bromley-by-Bow which so annoys Stratford-bound travellers is actually a godsend for shoppers who can't walk far. And the truncated 488 throws that benefit away. It'll terminate one stop past Tesco, then return afresh in the opposite direction on the other side of the A12 dual carriageway. Departing shoppers will have to cross a slip road, negotiate a series of shallow steps (or take a lengthy detour), walk down a forbidding underpass, ascend the ramp on the other side and then... damn, the nearest stop's still a considerable walk away up a completely different street. I can do Tesco to bus stop in four minutes, without bags, but I doubt I'll be quite so capable in 40 years time.
Which, if you're still reading, brings me to my main point. Back in November, TfL's Stakeholder Engagement department launched a major consultation to see what local residents thought of their proposed bus changes in the E3 area. You probably saw the consultation document on the TfL website, on the heavily-frequented "Bus route consultations" webpage. Oh you didn't? I doubt that many local residents noticed it either. There were no posters at bus stops, and nothing dropped through the letterbox of residents living along the route. Library users might have spotted a leaflet, and apparently there were some in hospitals too, but it was all terribly hit and miss. For non-inquisitive non-internet-enabled stakeholders, bugger all. No surprise, then, that elderly Tesco shoppers noticed nothing amiss until seven months later by which time the changes were imminent. Too late. And this is especially ironic given the content of the original consultation document...
Why make these changes? The average age of the population is increasing, and more people are finding it difficult to walk some distance to get a bus. Even for younger people a long walk can be difficult with children or heavy shopping.
Oops. Meanwhile the Bus Stop Route Number Updater has already been out removing all trace of the S2 from the East End's bus stops. Alien numbers have appeared for buses that don't yet quite exist, because this is a change that cannot be reversed. And the results of the consultation have also been just been released, less than a week before the new services begin, with TfL finally admitting that their proposals aren't perfect...
"During the consultation period a number of people noted that route 488 would not provide a suitable replacement to route S2 going to Bromley-By-Bow Tesco. Route 488 will still serve Bromley-By-Bow Tesco's. Passengers will now need to use the underpass in order to access the northbound service. We are continuing to investigate how Bromley-By-Bow Tesco and surrounding areas could be better served in future."
In fact, TfL's proposals haven't changed a bit since the consultation was launched. All the changes they proposed in November are going ahead - same buses, same routes, same roads. Even though they've uncovered problems, even though they're creating difficulties that weren't there before, they're still pressing forward. Nobody's pausing to reflect, or amend, or come up with something better. The entire consultation exercise appears to have been a box-ticking sham to confirm what TfL were already planning to do anyway. Pity. So from Saturday, if you see any struggling stakeholders trying to lug their shopping underneath the A12, please give them a hand. And do say sorry.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Monthly openings in (and around) London
Weekday
Saturday
Sunday
First
» Sir John Soane's Museum: Candlelit evening opening (first Tuesday) (WC2) » First Thursdays: After hours opening at East London's galleries and museums (E1-ish) » Lates: Central London culture, every first Friday evening. (WC1-ish)
There are many museums and attractions in and around London. Too many, in fact, for them all to receive a decent number of visitors every day. So some are only open occasionally. I'm trying to knock together a calendar of attractions that only open once a month. Can you help?
You're spoilt for choice this weekend. The majority of these monthly museums open on the first Saturday or first Sunday of the month. The second ****day of the month is less popular, and beyond that one-off openings are almost non-existent. Nobody thinks about "third Saturdays" or "fourth Sundays", so attractions tend not to open on these highly forgettable dates.
But I reckon I've missed quite a few once-a-months off my list. Please, if you know any more, let me know. [permalink]
Please note: » Museums and attractions only, not events. So, for example, I can't accept the Critical Mass bike ride (last Friday of the month), and I can't accept monthly club nights, or monthly meetings, or monthly walks, etc. » Regular events only. So I can't accept City Hall being open on the first weekend of the month, because it isn't always (but it is this month). » I am willing to accept places that occasionally open on other days, so long as there's a definite main once-a-month opening. » And I'll accept attractions just outside London, sort of inner Home Counties, but no further. No Brighton, no Birmingham, no Belfast. » There must be a few weekday once-offs, surely? Any Second Tuesdays or Fourth Fridays? » You might find some ideas here. I bet these searchengines won't be much help. Or you might just know of somewhere anyway. » Come on, because if we miss that one-off opening, it's a long wait until the next.
Last night, on my way home from work, I alighted prematurely from my Central Line train to take a look at the Liverpool Street screens. Perfect, I'd stepped off immediately underneath one of the two huge clunky overhead projectors, currently switched off while the train was in the platform. But as the last carriage sped out of the station, the lens whirred into action and an instant advert appeared on the opposite side of the track. A giant-sized grinning moron stared out from the curved wall, and moved. He juggled berries, he pointed to bottles of fruit smoothie and he attempted to appeal to all the lowest common denominator passengers on the platform. There was nothing else to watch (all the other posters had been removed) so we watched him.
Next up an advert for Sky Plus. Thankfully we didn't get Ross Kemp extolling the system's simplicity in his posh voice - these adverts are silent. What we got instead was a floating set-top box accompanied by a semi-audible announcement about severe delays. Next up a plug for a popular West End Show - very careful targeting of passing tourists, this. And then the smoothie idiot again. Same product, different 20 seconds of gurning. And then Sky again (same advert) and then another West End Show. You'd not notice the repetition if you were only waiting for a minute or two, but I'd hit a five minute gap between trains. Everything twice, at least. OK, bored now.
As the platform slowly filled with would-be travellers, I watched to see what their reaction would be. It was striking. The moving images on the opposite wall drew people's attention inexorably, completely, utterly. No human eye could resist the flickering hard sell, not when the alternative was staring at the platform. But there was one way to escape. Everybody holding a newspaper appeared to be immune. As each mini marketing masterpiece played out before them, they ignored it and continued to read their freesheet. It's official, Amy Winehouse gossip is more interesting than an animated Avenue Q advert. But hey, be it movie or newsprint, the advertisers had us either way.
At last, as the next train rumbled into the platform, the adverts switched off and previous reality was restored. Newly arriving passengers exiting from their carriages knew nothing of the drama that had been playing out on the wall behind them, they just rushed towards the escalators and home. I stayed to watch the next episode, even though I'd seen it all before. This time there was only the opportunity for a single plug for Spamalot before the following train intervened. These days, it seems, no moment of dwell time is too short to be exploited.
Two stations further down the line I had to wait in a crowd for a further five minutes on a bog-standard unmodernised platform. No dynamic commercials here, just people to watch and the occasional mouse scuttling around on the tracks. We coped with the ad-free nothingness, with ease. Sometimes it's good to be alone with your thoughts, and not burdened with someone else's. One day, I fear, all deep level tube stations may become sponsored cinemas. I just pray they find something more interesting to show us.
• The Queen's postcode at Buckingham Palace is SW1A 1AA • Between 1825 and 1925 London was the number one city in the world, until overtaken by New York. • The 01dialling code was introduced to London telephone numbers over a four year period in the late 1960s. • The tallest building at Canary Wharf is at One Canada Square. The tower has 50 floors, 3960 windows, 4388 steps and is 800 feet (244 metres) high. • Bus route1 runs from Tottenham Court Road to Canada Water. • The M1motorway runs 193 miles from Staples Corner in London to Rothwell near Leeds, while the A1trunk road runs 409 miles from the Aldersgate roundabout in London to Waverley Station in Edinburgh. • The One London party, a bunch of rebranded Eurosceptics, were wiped out at the last London Assembly elections. • The 2005 One London campaign still lingers on the Mayoral website. • The Duke of Wellington's address, at ApsleyHouse, was Number One, London.
• London is a six-letter word. • Despite wiping out most of the City's buildings, it is traditionally believed that only six people died in the 1666Great Fire of London (although it was probably rather more than that). • Greater London is divided up into sixtravelcardzones, of which Zone 2 has the most stations. • All of London's underground lines run north of the Thames, but only six run south. • Six tube lines interchange at King's Cross St Pancras - more than at any other station. • Bus route6 runs from Aldwych to Kensal Rise.
7
• Only seven people were ever executed inside the Tower of London on Tower Green, including Lady Jane Grey and two of the six wives of King Henry VIII. • Approximately 1 in 7 of the population of England live in London (population 7½million-ish). • 56 people died in the 7/7bombings in July 2005. • The walled City of London had sevengates - Aldersgate, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate, Moorgate and Newgate. • 7streets meet at SevenDials, named after the six sundials on the monument erected there in 1694. The monument itself casts a shadow - this is the seventh dial. • There are sevenglasshouses open to the public at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, including the Temperate House, the Palm House and the Princess of Wales Conservatory. • Seven Sisters on the Victoria Line is London's highest numbered tube station. The area is named after 7 elm trees, supposedly planted in the 14th century by seven sisters (and replanted, by seven sisters, twice since). • Seven Anglo-Saxon kings are reputed to have been crowned on Kingston's Coronation Stone in the tenth century (including Ethelred The Unready). • SevenKings is a minor suburb to the east of Ilford, and is named after chieftan Seofoca (not a number). • Bus route7 runs from Russell Square to East Acton.
8
• The London postal district contains eightpostcodes: N, NW, W, SW, SE, E, WC and EC. • There are eightRoyal Parks in London: Bushy Park, Green Park, Greenwich Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent's Park, Richmond Park and St James's Park • Eightdeep-level shelters were built in the early 1940s, linked to existing tube stations at Clapham South, Clapham Common, Clapham North, Stockwell, Goodge Street, Camden Town, Belsize Park and Chancery Lane. • Bus route8 runs from my house to Victoria.
• London's most famous address is 10Downing Street, home to the Prime Minister. • CityHall, seat of the Greater London Authority, has ten levels. • The Thames Flood Barrier has ten gates, the largest four of which weigh 3700 tonnes each. • Tenrailway bridges have been built across the River Thames in London: Alexandra, Blackfriars, Hungerford, Grosvenor, Battersea, Fulham, Barnes, Kew and Richmond. • Ten is the lowest number that isn't the first word of a London street name (in either the ordinal or cardinal form). • The A10trunk road runs due north from Monument to Kings Lynn. • Bus route10 runs from Kings Cross to Hammersmith. • What's the most famous number in Wimbledon? 10 is.
• There are only 13motorway junctions in Greater London - three on the M1 (j1, j2, j4), five on the M4 (j1, j2, j3, j4, j4a), one on the M11 (j4) and four on the M25 (j14, j25, j28, j29). • London has 13 Premiership and League football clubs. • Thirteen of London's green wooden cabmen's shelters remain (there were originally 61). • The A13trunk road from Aldgate to Shoeburyness is home to the innovative Artscape project, and was an inspiration to Billy Bragg. • Bus route13 runs from Aldwych to Golders Green.
• There are 19 tournament tennis courts at the All England Club in Wimbledon, SW19. • Victoria and Waterloo stations both have 19 mainline platforms, more than any other stations in London. • Residents of Ilford campaignedunsuccessfully to change their postcode from IG1 to the more London-y E19. • The University of London is a federation of 19 self-governing Colleges. • There are still 19grammar schools in London (8 for girls, 8 for boys, and only 3 mixed). • Bus route19 runs from Finsbury Park to Battersea.
20
• There are 20road bridges across the River Thames in London: Hampton Court, Kingston, Richmond, Twickenham, Kew, Chiswick, Hammersmith, Putney, Wandsworth, Battersea, Albert, Chelsea, Vauxhall, Lambeth, Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars, Southwark, London and Tower. • Medieval London Bridge was supported by 20 stone arches. • The Tower of London contains 20towers, the central one of which is White. • EastEnders is set in the fictional London borough of Walford, E20. • Since April 2000, all London telephone numbers have begun 020. • London has 20regional radio stations. • The A20trunk road runs from New Cross down through Kent to the docks at Dover. • There are 20 different postcodes in London: N, NW, W, SW, SE, E, WC and EC; then BR, CR, DA, EN, HA, IG, KT, RM, SM, TN, TW, UB. • Bus route20 runs from Walthamstow to Debden.
21
• There are 21 underground stations inside the Circle Line. • Tower Hamlets is named after the 21Hamlets OfThe Tower: Bednal Green, Blackwall, Bow, Bromley, East Smithfield, Hackney, Limehouse, Mile End, Norton Folgate, Oldford, Poplar, Ratcliff, St Katharines, Shadwell, Shoreditch, Spittlefields, Tower Extra, Tower Intra, Trinity Minores, Wapping and White Chappel. • The London 21 Sustainability Network runs the annual Love London Festival (which ends today). • Gun salutes mark special royal occasions on certain days of the year in London. The basic Royal Salute is 21 rounds. At the Tower of London 62 rounds are fired on Royal anniversaries (the basic 21, plus a further 20 because the Tower is a Royal Palace and Fortress, plus another 21 'for the City of London') and 41 on other occasions. • The A21trunk road runs from Lewisham to Hastings. • Bus route21 runs from Lewisham to Newington Green.
• London's highest-numbered postcode is that for Thamesmead, SE28. • There are (for the next few months) 28 stations on the Hammersmith and City Line. • Prior to 1965, London comprised 28metropolitan boroughs. • A London football team has won the FA Cup28 times (Arsenal 10, Spurs 8, Chelsea 4, West Ham 3, Wimbledon 1, Charlton 1, Clapham Rovers 1). • Only 28 of London's 268 Underground stations are located south of the Thames. • The steepest gradient on the Underground network is 1 in 28, between Bow Road and Bromley-by-Bow. • Bus route28 runs from Wandsworth to Kensal Rise
NDSo there we were outside the Imperial War Museum on Lambeth Road, attempting to work out an appropriate route to the Dome. Jubilee line, obviously, from nearby Waterloo or Southwark all the way to our destination. Except there was planned engineering work on the line and services were suspended between Green Park and North Greenwich, so that was out. Replacement bus services were operating... but only to Canada Water, and not from nearby, so no use there either. FAIL
So, despite protestations, we decided to walk to the nearest tube station. Across the Millennium Bridge to St Paul's, a bit of a trek but a mighty scenic route all the same. But when we finally arrived we discovered the gates to the station firmly locked. Bugger. I'd checked the weekend engineering update on the TfL website before setting out but I'd missed the small print that St Paul's station was closed due to refurbishment works. We should have gone to Mansion House in the first place but, of course, on the tube map that's not geographically obvious. FAIL
The infamous Bus Reshaping Plan of 1968 made major upheavals to long-standing patterns of service and introduced areas of 'flat-fare' operation (now that all London bus journeys cost the same, it is easy to forget that crews used to have to cope with complex fare charts for each route). These were numbered with a letter prefix based on the area, thus starting with the W series and moving on to include Peckham, Ealing and so on.
Back in the mid 18th century, every first Friday in July, much of east London decamped to the Essex countryside for a drunken knees-up. They headed to Fairlop, near Hainault, to feast and be merry under a great tree - the Fairlop Oak. Its branches were said to cast a midday shadow 300 feet in circumference, covering roughly an acre of land, and a seething mass of booths and stalls were laid out beneath its mighty span. This was Fairlop Fair, and over the decades it grew from a simple annual picnic into a tumultuous alcoholic riot. I'm not going to tell you the fair's full fascinating story, because you can read about that elsewhere. But it all began with a man buying bacon and beans for his friends.
Mr. Day, a shipbuilder, wishing to have a day's outing in the forest with his friends and employees, fitted up a vessel on wheels, fully rigged, in which he conveyed his picnic party to Hainault Forest, on the outskirts of which, some distance from Ilford, stood the famous Fairlop Oak. The holiday became an annual custom, and gradually changed its character from the simple gathering of a master and his men into regular saturnalia; during which, each year, from the first Friday in July, over the ensuing Saturday and Sunday, riot and debauchery reigned supreme in the glades of the forest and the eastern districts of London.The Fairlop Oak no longer stands. It was an extremely old tree even in the 1700s, and gradual decay set in as further years passed by. Huge branches broke free, the hollow trunk was burnt out by irresponsible picknickers, and gales in 1820 brought the remaining wood toppling to the ground. The fair continued nearby but it was never quite the same, and events dribbled to a close at the turn of the 20th century.Visit the site of Fairlop Fair today, just off Forest Road in the borough of Redbridge, and you'll find a very different place of entertainment. A flooded landfill site has become a centre for watersports, on which brave boarders sail and in which silent anglers dangle. The water's edge is surrounded by a very suburban golf course, and the Fairlop Waters bar and restaurant serves up beer and spicy food to keen clubbers. Peer through the large glass windows and you can see the golf widows beached on the bright red sofas, waiting patiently for their beloveds to return from a lengthy 18-hole round. And not just on the first Friday in July, but every day of the week. Alas the tin hut hosting Al's Adventure House has closed down due to lack of investment, and visiting children no longer run beneath the waving alligator to enjoy two hours of playtime fun. No longer is this a debauched hotbed of annual East End revelry, more a conservative sport and steakhouse hideaway.
But the past hasn't been completely forgotten. Walk west instead of east from Fairlop station and you'll reach the roundabout at Fulwell Cross. The most impressive sight here is the copper blancmange library, but look instead to the grass circle at the heart of the fiveways junction. Here, in 1951, a replacement Fairlop Oak was planted to commemmorate the festival of Britain. A plaque on the wall of the local oak-themed Wetherspoons remembers the old tree as well as the new. This replacement Quercus robur has grown quite a bit in the last 50 years, and now stands proud and tall amidst the traffic at the top of Barkingside High Road. I doubt very much that any East End revellers will journey to Fairlop today and cross to the central reservation to merrymake beneath its branches. But do raise a First Friday glass tonight for London's drunken heritage, for the right to party, and for Fairlop Fair.
So we'll dance round the tree, and merry we will be,(hic)Bus S2: Clapton - Stratford
For me, the S2 has three particularly interesting features. Firstly it's one of London's lettered bus services, the sole remaining outpost of Stratford's dwindled 'S' empire. More of that shortly, if you're patient. Secondly it's one of those buses that goes on a big loopy detour to eventually get back to somewhere it's already been. In this case that's a diversion to Bromley-by-Bow station and the nearby Tesco, much to the annoyance of any through travellers who get to spend seven unnecessary minutes of their life on an arterial road (or considerably longer if the traffic's bad). And thirdly the S2 is one of my local buses, a unique link to the heart of Hackney, in which I therefore have a personal interest. Especially now its days are numbered. Two.
Of all the buses I might have hoped they'd switch, alas, the bendy buses on route 25 aren't included and will continue to blunder along Bow Road unaltered. But they'll now have competition from a brand new route, the 425, giving a more pleasant alternative to articulated transportation. Although only from Stratford as far as Mile End station. Then the 425 turns right and follows route 277 north through Victoria Park and on to Clapton. The full journey from Stratford to Clapton is less than three miles as the crow flies, but the 425 travels twice as far. And TfL are scheduling this mysterious dog-leg route, which goes nowhere new, with a full double decker allocation. Only time will tell if passenger numbers justify their optimism.
And then there's the 276. This Newham to Stoke Newington service used to run through what is now the Olympic Park construction site. Obviously that journey would now be an unacceptable security risk, so for the last year the bus has been diverted up the A12 via Fish Island. But not for much longer. From Saturday it'll be re-diverted, even further from its original route, following the current S2 through Bow. This may not be good news for long distance travellers, but it gives me yet another way to get to southeast Hackney. I used to have only one direct route to Homerton Hospital, and imminently I'll have three. I just can't imagine needing the choice.
And finally, what of the demise of the S2? Overnight tomorrow it'll lose its letter and be reborn in decapitated form under a new route number, 488. That's almost as high as regular London bus numbers go, signifying an unimportant afterthought of a service. This instant irrelevance is what happens when you cut off the last mile and a half of the bus route, the bit that went to Stratford, the bit that made the journey useful. Southbound buses will now terminate in Bromley-by-Bow, a place that few Hackney residents feel a burning desire to visit. The 488 will be a runty little bus, running less frequently than the S2, carrying fewer people, to nowhere special. And it's got the elderly shoppers of E3 up in arms.
Which, if you're still reading, brings me to my main point. Back in November, TfL's Stakeholder Engagement department launched a major consultation to see what local residents thought of their proposed bus changes in the E3 area. You probably saw the consultation document on the TfL website, on the heavily-frequented "Bus route consultations" webpage. Oh you didn't? I doubt that many local residents noticed it either. There were no posters at bus stops, and nothing dropped through the letterbox of residents living along the route. Library users might have spotted a leaflet, and apparently there were some in hospitals too, but it was all terribly hit and miss. For non-inquisitive non-internet-enabled stakeholders, bugger all. No surprise, then, that elderly Tesco shoppers noticed nothing amiss until seven months later by which time the changes were imminent. Too late. And this is especially ironic given the content of the original consultation document...
Why make these changes?Oops. Meanwhile the Bus Stop Route Number Updater has already been out removing all trace of the S2 from the East End's bus stops. Alien numbers have appeared for buses that don't yet quite exist, because this is a change that cannot be reversed. And the results of the consultation have also been just been released, less than a week before the new services begin, with TfL finally admitting that their proposals aren't perfect...
"During the consultation period a number of people noted that route 488 would not provide a suitable replacement to route S2 going to Bromley-By-Bow Tesco. Route 488 will still serve Bromley-By-Bow Tesco's. Passengers will now need to use the underpass in order to access the northbound service. We are continuing to investigate how Bromley-By-Bow Tesco and surrounding areas could be better served in future."In fact, TfL's proposals haven't changed a bit since the consultation was launched. All the changes they proposed in November are going ahead - same buses, same routes, same roads. Even though they've uncovered problems, even though they're creating difficulties that weren't there before, they're still pressing forward. Nobody's pausing to reflect, or amend, or come up with something better. The entire consultation exercise appears to have been a box-ticking sham to confirm what TfL were already planning to do anyway. Pity. So from Saturday, if you see any struggling stakeholders trying to lug their shopping underneath the A12, please give them a hand. And do say sorry.
Last night, on my way home from work, I alighted prematurely from my Central Line train to take a look at the Liverpool Street screens. Perfect, I'd stepped off immediately underneath one of the two huge clunky overhead projectors, currently switched off while the train was in the platform. But as the last carriage sped out of the station, the lens whirred into action and an instant advert appeared on the opposite side of the track. A giant-sized grinning moron stared out from the curved wall, and moved. He juggled berries, he pointed to bottles of fruit smoothie and he attempted to appeal to all the lowest common denominator passengers on the platform. There was nothing else to watch (all the other posters had been removed) so we watched him.
As the platform slowly filled with would-be travellers, I watched to see what their reaction would be. It was striking. The moving images on the opposite wall drew people's attention inexorably, completely, utterly. No human eye could resist the flickering hard sell, not when the alternative was staring at the platform. But there was one way to escape. Everybody holding a newspaper appeared to be immune. As each mini marketing masterpiece played out before them, they ignored it and continued to read their freesheet. It's official, Amy Winehouse gossip is more interesting than an animated Avenue Q advert. But hey, be it movie or newsprint, the advertisers had us either way.
