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  • Romford to West Brompton – TFL Rail and London Overground

    Romford to West Brompton – TFL Rail and London Overground

    My route early this afternoon was to get from Romford in east London to West Brompton in west London. Checking the TFL fare finder there are four possible prices for this journey.

    (i) Peak: £5.10 Monday to Friday from 0630 to 0930 and from 1600 to 1900.
    (ii) Off Peak: £3.10 At all other times including public holidays.

    (iii) Peak: £2.80 Monday to Friday from 0630 to 0930 and from 1600 to 1900.
    (iv) Off Peak: £2.60 At all other times including public holidays.

    The first two fares involve going through central London, the second two fares involve going via the London Overground. I was before the peak time, but always ready to save 50p, I decided to go for that. But, during peak time, it would save £2 going the alternate route.

    The Romford roundel, with the colours of the Elizabeth Line, or, as most people will probably keep calling it, Crossrail.

    Until Crossrail is fully operational, so in about 71 years, TFL rail are running services between Romford (starting from Shenfield) and London Liverpool Street. This is the service which used to be run by Abellio, until it was switched in 2015.

    Inside the train, which has frankly seen better days. I’m not very good at train recognition, but I think it’s a Class 315, which were built by British Rail (when they weren’t busy closing stations) in 1980. The train was six minutes late in arriving, but there are trains every ten minutes, so it doesn’t make much difference. The train got busier as we got nearer to London.

    To get the cheaper fare, I couldn’t go into London Liverpool Street, I had to change at Stratford. This is easy enough, but it’s necessary to tap the pink oyster reader so that the system knows that you’ve switched to the Overground. You couldn’t really cheat this, as the TFL Rail train would arrive into the mainline platforms at London Liverpool Street and customers would have to switch to the underground, which would then be noted by the oyster readers.

    Here’s the Overground train at Stratford, I think a Class 378. My knowledge about this is very limited…..

    It wasn’t very busy to begin with, but it got a little busier over the route. I saw Grenfell Tower for the first time and then went to read the Guardian online who had just that moment put up a story about it. Very sobering and sad.

    And here we (well, me, no-one else would want to faff around like this) are in West Brompton, arriving 11 minutes late. It is possible to claim delay repay for these services if they are up to 30 minutes late, but I couldn’t get any money back on this occasion. Hopefully, and I shall find out tomorrow, I have been charged £2.60 for this journey. That is a decent fare for a distance of around 19 miles (measured in a straight line).

  • London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – Church of St Edward the Confessor

    London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – Church of St Edward the Confessor

    This church is located in the market-place of Romford and there has been a religious building here for centuries as the main parish church. The current building dates only to 1849 and was designed by John Johnson, with the previous structure from the early fifteenth century being demolished.

    Edward the Confessor (1003-1066) was a King of England and he was made a saint, perhaps one of the more controversial appointments if I’m being honest. But, to be fair, it was several centuries ago and it’s hard to reverse these things now.

    Interesting entrance way.

    The design is a little different to many other churches, quite an imposing frontage and the spire is 162 feet in height.

    The side of the church and it appears impossible to get to the rear of the building now, but the area behind is still a green. There was a load of scaffolding being taken in and out of the church when I was meandering around, so I felt best not to try and get in. There are though apparently some older monuments inside which are from the previous building.

    Some of the older gravestones remain in the churchyard, although few of them are now readable.

  • Basildon – Premier Inn Basildon Festival Park

    Basildon – Premier Inn Basildon Festival Park

    This Premier Inn at Festival Park was keenly priced and isn’t too far away from the beating heart of Basildon town centre. I say beating heart because it’s nice to be polite.

    The welcome at the hotel was friendly and the room was clean and well-equipped. I liked that they had a large fan, although this is because there’s no air conditioning of note. Everything was well maintained in the room, although the fan in the bathroom sounded like an Airbus A380 taking off.

    The problem Premier Inn have, or as far as I’m concerned, is that they’ve skimped on the construction costs of their hotels. I’ve experienced before the problems they have with internal noise, and this hotel suffered badly from noise from all sides, let alone guests shouting. A lot of this problem is cheapness of the internal fit-out, a shame given that the room itself feels like it’s had some money spent on it.

    Internal noise in hotels annoys me far more than external noise, as I like the sound of roads and city outside the window. But creaking doors from other rooms and it sounding like people are rearranging furniture above can feel a bit intrusive. I’m probably one of the few people who is excited by a room next a busy road or railway station, so I’m not that demanding in this regard. In other regards, I’m a nightmare, but that’s a different matter.

    Anyway, all was OK with the stay overall, but buildings like this could perhaps do with being knocked down and rebuilt. I suspect that Premier Inn and Whitbread might not be sure of that sort of strategy though. But, for the first time I’d say in the best part of a decade, I do get the impression that Travelodge are moving back ahead of Premier Inn. That’s not borne out by customer reviews on-line, but the difference between the two is now very narrow and a few years ago, Travelodge was a country mile behind.

    I struggle not to think of Alan Partridge and his big plate, but that might just be because I live in Norwich….

  • London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – Golden Lion

    London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – Golden Lion

    I didn’t go inside this Greene King pub, but it’s worthy of some note as it’s claimed that it’s the pub which has been in the longest continuous use as an inn in the country. It’s known to have been trading since the early fifteenth century, which is one hell of a heritage to have. It’s located on the High Street in Romford, which was once the main road which went from Colchester to London. This meant it was an ideal location for a coaching inn and the building of the turnpike gave them a suitable boost in trade. It has generally kept the same name throughout its history, although was known as the Red Lion for a period during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

    The side of the pub. Staggeringly, as recently as the 1960s there was discussion about knocking the pub down to help build the new road system around Romford, but this was fortunately avoided.

    It’s a sizeable location, which I assume once had space for tens of horses. As an aside, this property was once owned by Francis Bacon (as in the philosopher and not the painter) and it might have been where Will Kemp stayed when he was morris dancing from London to Norwich.

  • London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – Travelodge Romford Quadrant

    London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – Travelodge Romford Quadrant

    At just over £20 for a night’s stay, I wasn’t entirely hopeful about what this Travelodge might offer. The exterior doesn’t look the most exciting for a hotel either.

    My first impressions weren’t great with the state of this carpet.

    But, appearances can be deceptive. The staff member at reception was warm and personable, with plenty of information being provided. The room, which was a little smaller than some other Travelodges, was clean and comfortable. There were also no noise issues either internally or externally.

    And, some significant credit should go to Travelodge for their Samsung air conditioning unit. Sometimes hotels have the same heating/cooling throughout, they pump warm air through in winter and cold air through in summer. It’s usually insufficient and gives the individual no ability to choose how warm they want their room. In other hotels the air conditioning is either limited or just doesn’t work. However, here, it worked very effectively and allowed me to get the room to my preferred temperature of cold.

    Some work was probably needed on the state of the old windows.

    All told, this stay represented excellent value for money, I was very impressed. It’s also in the centre of Romford for anyone who wants to treat themselves to a day there (I’m sure that there are some) and it’s easy to get to central London using TFL trains.

  • People no Longer Visit Banks…..

    People no Longer Visit Banks…..

    There’s no shortage of banks in Romford and I was moderately surprised just how many people were waiting in the queue for them all. This is the queue at the HSBC and who said that customers are mostly switching to on-line banking?

  • London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – High Street Old Bridge

    London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – High Street Old Bridge

    This plaque is on the external wall of the former Star Brewery building, which is now Havering Museum. I didn’t understand the relevance of why it was here, but a map helps to make sense of this. They knocked down the bridge in 1906 and it’s been partly covered over now. It’s the River Rom and the brewery had incorporated it into their brewing process, clearly deciding that the High Street no longer needed a bridge.

    The former location of the bridge is more obvious in this map. The Latin inscription on the stone notes that the bridge was rebuilt during the reign of King George II, and although the date of the rebuild wasn’t listed on the stone, it was likely in 1737.

  • London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – Romford Brewery Company

    London – Havering (Borough of) – Romford – Romford Brewery Company

    The Brewery in Romford today is a shopping centre and entertainment complex, but this was once a brewery that operated over a large site.

    To be fair, the brewery seems to have taken up most of central Romford. It was founded at the beginning of the eighteenth century and was initially part of the Star Inn pub. Makes sense to run a brewery if you have your own pub to sell it in. It was also handily located next to a river, the River Rom which the town was named after, as well as having good transportation links.

    The brewery traded until 1993, but the site was redeveloped and re-opened as a shopping centre and entertainment complex in 2001.

    Housing has also now been constructed on the site.

    The frontage of the brewery on the High Street, which was historically the main road that went through Romford.

    The former entranceway to what was known as the Star Brewery for much of its life (due to the pub it was once attached to), with some interesting photos at http://breweryhistory.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ind_Coope_Ltd.

    The old brewery gates have been cleaned up and kept, a permanent reminder of what was once here.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 199

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 199

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

    Maggot Boiler

    This is defined by Grose as “a tallow-chandler” and although he doesn’t offer an explanation in the dictionary, it’s because of the number of maggots which would be found in the fat which the candle makers use. It doesn’t like a job which seems entirely enjoyable if I’m being honest….

  • London – Havering (Borough of) – Hornchurch – Towers

    London – Havering (Borough of) – Hornchurch – Towers

    I couldn’t quite work out why on earth Lidl had put the word ‘Towers’ outside their supermarket, but it looked interesting so I took a photo. Wikipedia has the answer here though for me, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_Cinema, this was a cinema between 1935 and 1973. It was in the art deco style and looks an impressive building, operated by Odeon for most of its time as a cinema. It was then turned into a bingo hall, before closing in 2015.

    Unfortunately, the building didn’t survive despite the efforts of locals. This is a shame, I suspect they’ll regret the demolition of these art deco buildings over the next few decades. Wikipedia note, so it may or may not be true, that Everyman Cinemas tried to buy the building, but Lidl won through and wanted it demolished. Shame that such a beautiful building was lost for such a generic supermarket design, but they kept the Towers lettering and placed it outside.

    As a piece of art design, Lidl’s idea to place the lettering here seems a good one, a reminder of what once stood here.