Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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  • London – Barking and Dagenham (Borough of) – Ibis Barking

    London – Barking and Dagenham (Borough of) – Ibis Barking

    Of no great relevance to anyone other than me, but I’ve realised that I’ve never written about the Ibis at Barking, despite having stayed there three times. Given I can be quite a completist, I feel the need to quickly note a few things about the hotel for my own record if nothing else….

    This hotel is about an eight minute walk from Barking railway station or around ten minutes from East Ham underground station, so not ideally located for those using public transport (especially if they’re carrying things), but it’s also not in the middle of nowhere. There’s also an Ibis Budget very nearby, although I’ve not yet been to that one. Perhaps because of the location of the hotel, which is more suited for cars, it’s generally one of the cheaper Accor hotels in London, which is its main appeal to me. There is a reasonable amount of car parking on site, which is of no relevance to me, but it seems reasonably priced.

    The hotel has been clean and welcoming on my three visits here, all entirely functional and comfortable. There’s a small bar and restaurant area at reception which isn’t the largest, but it seems sufficient for the number of customers who want to use it. They have a slightly annoying system that the floor numbers don’t match the room numbers, so that the second floor has room numbers beginning with 3, but fortunately I manage not to let that concern me overly. All of the rooms appear to be the same, so there’s not much to add other than the photo above, with the usual Accor prefabricated shower pod being used as usual.

    The free welcome drink I had last week, which is a perfectly acceptable Brewdog Punk IPA. The drinks selection is not earth shattering, but it’s better than most other Ibis hotels, so I can’t much complain about that. I’ve never had any difficulties with noise, either internally or externally, nor indeed any other problems of note. So, all rather lovely.

  • London – Central London – The London Stone

    London – Central London – The London Stone

    There’s not much that I can add to the collective on-line resources about this stone, but I still find it an interesting survival. It was once part of a larger stone structure that might date back as far as the Saxon period (some say the Roman period), although the written record is more substantial from the medieval period. It’s known that in 1450 Jack Cade, the leader of a revolt against the governance of the country, entered London and struck the stone with his sword, which he claimed made him the Lord Mayor of London. He was dead soon after, the process wasn’t quite as smooth as he might have hoped.

    Here is the stone in its current home, 111 Cannon Street. It was once located at Candlewick Street, which was later widened to create the current Cannon Street. It has been something of a tourist attraction since the sixteenth century (I suppose they didn’t have many other options then, places like the London Dungeon weren’t trading in the way that they are now), although it had to be moved as it was in the way of traffic. Bloody typical that they move items of historic interest to make way for traffic, but nothing much changes. From the seventeenth century, the stone was placed safely in the wall of St. Swithin’s Church, but that was damaged during the Second World War. It was though included in the replacement building to ensure its future.

    The situation became a little ridiculous more recently when the stone became included in the WH Smiths store and got stuck behind the magazine rack. The entire building was demolished in 2016 and today it’s back in a nice alcove so that the public can easily see the stone. It might not be much to look at, but it’s a remarkable survivor and there’s some considerable heritage to the whole arrangement.

    There’s an information board by the stone (clicking on the image makes it larger). I accept that individuals have to use a lot of imagination here when looking at this lump of rock, but I like that it’s there.

  • London – Brewdog Tower Hill (Scramm’s Mead)

    London – Brewdog Tower Hill (Scramm’s Mead)

    My friend Richard was on another of his decadent trips to London at the weekend, which was handy as he was dropping my tent off for my week of camping. We popped into Tower Hill Brewdog and I wasn’t going to write about this, as I’ve written before about this bar which is near to the Tower of London (I’ve taken my main photo for this post from an earlier visit as well). We were slightly surprised to get a table as it two hours before the football started, but, fortunately, the fans weren’t much interested in Brewdog until the football was about to start.

    Two things of note though. Firstly, Richard wasn’t impressed at his avocado and feta bowl (I don’t know why he ordered this, but I didn’t say anything) as it was mostly leaves with only limited sprinklings of anything else. I didn’t bother taking a photo of the meal but would have done if I had known how disappointed he was with it. He was about to tell the staff his thoughts about it, but there was no check back and the staff member who collected the mostly left plate of leaves didn’t say anything either. I was a little disappointed by this, I would have been interested in what they had to say. Probably “why didn’t you order a burger?” or something….

    Anyway, of more relevance was the very decadent Marionberry from Schramm’s Mead which Richard spent a small fortune on. I was fortunate enough to pinch a little of it, because I noticed that this is one of the best rated breweries in the world. Schramm’s Mead are located in Ferndale, Missouri and I’ve decided that I need to have a visit to their taproom at some point in the future. Untappd note that this brewery averages at 4.52 from their 111,386 ratings, a quite phenomenal score. I accept that not everyone gets excited by very high scores on Untappd, but I’m easily excited by this.

    As for the Marionberry, which is a fruit mead (or melomel), this was absurdly good. Made with Marion Blackberries it had the taste of a rich jam and it was moving towards being a red wine in my eyes. Smooth for its 14%, but packed with flavour and a very different drinking experience. Not the cheapest, but I’d absolutely order from this brewery again if I see anything of theirs in the UK. And if not, I’ll just have to wait until I go and see them in the United States. A very lovely drink indeed and full credit to Brewdog for making this available.

  • National Express and Trustpilot

    National Express and Trustpilot

    As another one of my irrelevant asides that are of interest to only me, I wondered last week how National Express were getting such high marks on Trustpilot.

    National Express manage 4.2/5 which is “great” according to Trustpilot’s scheme, whereas Flixbus score 2.1/5 which is “poor” and Megabus score 2.0/5 which is also “poor”. Given that I can’t believe National Express are actually any better than their rivals, this felt a bit strange.

    It becomes clear from these feedback e-mails that National Express send to customers. If you click on the green happy icon (as I was a few weeks ago) you’re taken to a long questionnaire about how great National Express are, with the facility to leave feedback on external sites. If you click the red unhappy icon (as I was last week), it just says how sad they are that you weren’t happy. No attempt to collect feedback why and of course, no forwarding onto any external sites.

    Nothing wrong with all of this (indeed I’m sure National Express are very impressed at what they’ve done to skew the results), just a reminder of how bloody useless Trustpilot is at measuring anything.

  • Shoreham-by-Sea – YHA Truleigh Hill (Walk to Bus)

    Just photos of my walk to get the bus to get into Brighton and Hove. I admit that the scenery in the morning is quite nice, although I’ve got to traipse back to the campsite later again which I’m already pre-annoyed about.

    If I’m being honest, I don’t feel that I offer the same inspirational commentary on walking as Dave Morgan provides. But I do more food and drink photos, so half a dozen of one, half a dozen of the other…..

  • Shoreham-by-Sea – YHA Truleigh Hill

    Shoreham-by-Sea – YHA Truleigh Hill

    Back in February, when the world was a different place (and hotels were shut), I decided it might be interesting to go camping on my own and see if I liked it. I don’t entirely dislike it with groups of friends, but I thought it might be nice to get away from it all and be at one with nature. YHA had a deal where the campsite was just £7 per night, so a four night stay cost just £28. Given the accommodation prices in Brighton and Hove (any half decent hotel is £75+ per night), that’s considerably cheaper.

    I booked YHA Truleigh Hill, which is, as far as I’m concerned, in the middle of nowhere, although it is on the South Downs Way. It’s a 70 minute walk each way to Shoreham, although then it’s well connected with buses to the Brighton and Hove area.

    The YHA itself is a bit worn out internally, but they had been about to launch a refurbishment in 2020 before Covid hit. The renovations are on hold and might not take place for some time given the financial hit that YHA have had. One of the biggest problems is the lack of electrical points, which they had hoped to fix, but they can’t do this without an expensive electrical systems upgrade which was part of the planned renovations. The friendly staff member did though point out the four-way plug in the cafe where I could charge my devices, so that’s sorted that.

    The staff here are all perfectly friendly, although one is slightly exuberant, although I don’t suppose that’s really a complaint. There are more rules here that I’ve experienced at other YHAs, although that’s perhaps because others are a bit more lax sometimes in how they operate. There’s nothing off-putting though and the staff are doing their best to keep everything clean and organised.

    I picked this spot, which overlooks the sea (well it would have done if I had pointed the door that way).

    There’s a lower area to the camping area as well where visitors can pitch their tents, although given all the benches around there (and probably flies), I can’t imagine many do.

    My tent, which is slightly wonky but I’m not really into camping and tents. I messaged my friend Liam distressed at the complexity of putting the tent up, although the good news is that it’s still there (well, hopefully, I’m no longer near it) and I put the damn thing up unaided.

    The view from the tent. I sent this to some people who thought it must be marvellous to watch the sun go down. I’m not convinced, I spent five minutes extracting a moth the size of a seagull out of my tent.

    Anyway, I noted earlier on that it might be “nice to get away from it all”. I’ve realised that I actually really like “it all”, which is civilisation, Prets, good beer guide pubs, craft beer and public transport. I’ve come to realise how much of a city person I am and how I’m not going to set off on some solo expedition with a tent in the future. This camping thing is an interesting experiment, but I can’t see me repeating it, unless it’s with a group of friends, in a pub beer garden or in the middle of a city. The experiment isn’t yet over, but I can’t imagine my views of this whole thing will change.

  • Southern Railway : London Victoria to Shoreham-by Sea (gone wrong)

    Southern Railway : London Victoria to Shoreham-by Sea (gone wrong)

    I stupidly, and now regret to be fair, decided to go on a little camping trip to the south coast this week. That meant leaving the comfort of London with its bars, Prets, Greggs and other home comforts, for the wilds of the South Downs.

    With not much time spare (very unusually for me) I arrived at London Victoria. The platform for the train to Littlehampton wasn’t announced until 10:41, which isn’t entirely ideal when the service leaves at 10:45. Although, that gave me time to play guess the platform, and I guessed correctly that it would be platform 12, so I was ready and waiting. Any passenger in another part of the railway station with mobility issues would have had a rather more entertaining and stressful four minutes.

    Here we are, ready to board. At this stage, I didn’t think there would be much of interest during this rail journey, so I didn’t expect to use these photos.

    The Southern Train pulls in, all seems to be going to plan. It was a long train which was nearly entirely empty, but all was on time.

    The carriage. And with that, I was expecting to arrive into Shoreham-by-Sea around an hour later with no issues or delays.

    We got past Gatwick and there was then an announcement that the railway network on the southern coast had run out of power or something similar. This didn’t sound ideal, but a staff member at Haywards Heath said to just board the next train to Brighton and then change there. So I did that, whilst carrying my bag and traipsing another bag about. It’s fair to say, I’m not really getting into this camping thing. Indeed, I’ve spent most of the day moaning about it to people.

    Boarding the 11:43 to Brighton.

    On board that train into Brighton, carting all this bloody camping equipment with me.

    When at Brighton railway station it was evident that I had about fifteen minutes until the train to Hove, where I could catch a train to Shoreham from. I popped to the gateline and asked to be let out of the railway station (implying I also wanted letting back in shortly afterwards) so that I could visit Pret to get an emergency hot chocolate.

    I still have my Pret subscription, so this was a handy stop and got me an unexpected free drink.

    Back in the railway station I boarded the train to Hove, also relieved that I had been let back through the gateline without any problems.

    This train journey wasn’t particularly busy and since it only went to Hove it lasted all of around five minutes. My hot chocolate was so hot I still hadn’t drunk any of it by the time that we got to Hove (not that anyone will be too bothered about that).

    Anyway, I got off at Hove and this railway employee was giving advice on what to do next as it was clear not much rail traffic was leaving this station. The advice was primarily to get a bus and this was all arranged with the local company so that rail passengers wouldn’t have to pay. I liked his “there’s no point standing here” as some customers didn’t believe him when he said there were no trains for some time. As I understand, it transpired that it took the about three hours to fix the problem, so anyone waiting at the station for the services to be restored wouldn’t have had a quick departure.

    And a five minute walk saw me find a bus to Shoreham, which helpfully dropped me off slightly nearer to the campsite than the train would have done. But, I was well over an hour late, so at least this rail fare will be refunded under delay repay. With that, my camping adventure would begin, although writing this one day later, I can’t say that this is my favourite adventure that I’ve ever had. But we’ll see how it goes from here.

  • Newcastle – Holy Jesus Hospital

    Newcastle – Holy Jesus Hospital

    This old building in Newcastle looked interesting to me, even though it’s clearly been the victim of some rather aggressive road building practices in recent decades.

    It’s likely necessary to click on this dual map to mark it larger, but it shows how dominant the road system has become to the geography of Newcastle over the last century. What would have been a quiet area has now become something of a traffic junction.

     

    Anyway, back to the building itself, this is the former Holy Jesus Hospital building which was constructed in 1681 for the Corporation of Newcastle upon Tyne. It was designed to accommodate a master of the hospital, as well as 39 poor freemen or their widows, with an extension added on the rear in 1886.

    This usage as an almshouses was a continuation of its hospital usage from its period as an Augustinian Friary between 1291 and 1539. After the Reformation, a request made by Thomas Cromwell to leave the building intact for usage as the King’s Council of the North meeting facilities, a bit like an early Northern Powerhouse. It wasn’t much used for this though, so the structure started to fall into disrepair, before eventually in the seventeenth century it all came under the control of the City Corporation.

    The beautiful sandstone fountain outside the front entrance is now quite worn, but it does date from the late seventeenth century and so I suppose that’s understandable. The street level around it has been raised though, so it has now lost some of its visual impact. There is also a tower at the site, which I managed not to see as I was rushing to the pub, with this dating from some time around the late sixteenth century (the tower, not the pub).

    For some time the building was used as the John George Joicey Museum from 1950, which would seem an ideal usage for the former hospital today. However, that closed in 1983 and it is now used as offices by the National Trust and other organisations. Lovely as this is, it seems an entirely unsuitable usage for such an interesting building, which should really be accessible to the public. There are occasional opportunities to visit the interior as part of a guided tour, but it’s a shame that more isn’t always available given it that it was in use as a hospital for over 700 years and is one of only two seventeenth century brick buildings to survive in the city.

  • Newcastle – The Town Mouse

    Newcastle – The Town Mouse

    When I mentioned a few days ago on Facebook that I was in Newcastle, Tony from the brilliant Hop & Vine in Hull suggested popping into The Town Mouse. I suspect I would have gone here anyway as part of my tour of Good Beer Guide pubs in the city, but I wasn’t going to neglect a recommendation from Tony and made this one a priority.

    On my arrival there was a friendly welcome from the staff member and she was happy to find me a table even though they were busy and I was on my own. I add that as it would have been easy for her to shove me outside where there was a small table, but instead she did also offer a table inside. Tony had mentioned that the micropub was run by a man named Jon, and when I heard the staff member use that name to someone looking managerial I decided that I’d introduce myself (which was very brave, I normally try and introduce myself to someone who is nothing to do with anything). Anyway, on this occasion it worked out and it was great to have a chance to talk to Jon about his bar, craft beer bars in Warsaw (I don’t tire of talking about the exciting beer situation in Poland) and the Hop & Vine, amongst numerous other things. I’ll see if I can convince him into a little interview for this blog   🙂

    This is genuinely beautiful, a range of beer styles and a mixture of cask and keg. The cask range is more limited than usual, but will return to a wider selection when things return to normality in the world. Underneath this is a multi-page list of cans and bottles, which had sufficient choice for me to want to make a few return visits. I like it when pubs do this, as when they’ve got a gap in beer style for any reason, then customers can at least have the option of having a can or bottle or something similar to what they wanted. Although having noted that, there’s an opportunity to try a whole range of different beer options here.

    The Damn Dead Blueberry from Wild Weather brewery, who I hadn’t heard of but are from Reading and they brew some other similar options in the range including raspberry, apricot, kiwi, grapefruit, peach, strawberry, gooseberry and even cucumber. I’m not sure how the cucumber ends up tasting, but I like a bit of innovation in beer. This beer was quite intriguing given that it had a sour taste initially (unsurprising as it’s a sour) but then it seemed to have something of a sweetness from the blueberry.

    This is the Pastel De Nada Mexicake Stout from Elusive Brewing and, showing my ignorance again, I hadn’t heard of this brewery either (although I should have done, I had one of their beers in Brewdog Ealing a few weeks ago, but I have a bad memory for this sort of thing). Jon explained much more about them and I shall keep an eye out for their beers in future, it seems they have some collaborations with other respected breweries, not least Weird Beard as with this beer. At 8.7%, this was still smooth and there was that lovely decadent aftertaste that I crave with vanilla and chocolate flavours. There’s a warming touch from the chilli as well, although I thought this was quite subtle and I liked the subtle tastes with this beer. Definitely a beer

    As an irrelevant aside, I didn’t receive any badges on Untappd for either of the beers that I had in this micropub. For anyone who uses Untappd, they’ll know that this is quite a rare occurrence not to get a badge. I mention this as I’m not sure that Jon is quite as excited and engaged about Untappd badges as I am. But I’m easily pleased and need distraction and he runs a bar, so he doesn’t need any more distractions.

    Anyway, back to this bar which has been operating for a few years in a central location in Newcastle. Tony did comment on whether I noticed any similarities between this and his pub, and Jon said there were influences that he had incorporated from the Hop & Vine. The cellar element was of course the most evident in terms of the design, but there was a community feel here just as I’d like. It was clear that there were many regulars coming in and the environment was relaxed and comfortable. I liked that I was found a table willingly and that the staff were knowledgeable and helpful. But, this was one of those locations where I felt if I was new to the area than I’d be made to feel welcome not just by the staff, but also by other customers. On that basis, what I love from the Hop & Vine has carried through here. I’m pleased to report that I think this is a quite marvellous pub and absolutely right to be in the Good Beer Guide. Definitely one of the best micropubs that I’ve been in.

  • Gateshead – Millennium Bridge

    Gateshead – Millennium Bridge

    Back in 1996, Gateshead Council decided they’d quite like a new bridge for pedestrians and cyclists and so they started a competition to design one. The successful designer was the architects Wilkinson & Eyre, with the structural engineers being Gifford and Partners. It seems that because Gateshead Council were ahead of the curve (there’s an accidental pun there I didn’t initially intend) on this, they got to call it what they wanted, which is why it’s not called the Newcastle Millennium Bridge.

    An information board by the bridge notes that this is “the world’s first and only tilting bridge” and it still opens to allow boats of up to 25 metres in height through. It takes just over four minutes for the bridge to tilt and costs very little to do so as the design was initially environmentally conscious.

    The bridge (also known as the Blinking Eye Bridge) was constructed in one piece, which must have required some considerable planning as it was floated six miles down the river to get it here in November 2000. A floating crane was involved with the whole arrangement, but this sounds like a complex civil engineering challenge that is beyond my understanding, although my friend Liam is building a bridge and I’m sure he’d be excited by a floating crane (I don’t think they have one of those to construct the Great Yarmouth bridge). The bridge cost £22 million to construct, partly funded by the Millennium Commission and the European Regional Development Fund, which seems pretty decent value given how iconic it has become over the last couple of decades.

    I’ve been to Newcastle on a few occasions before, but this is the first time that I’ve crossed over this iconic bridge. I can’t imagine that anyone else is excited by my doing that, but I was (I’m easily pleased and should probably get out more).