Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Central London

  • London – Hard Rock Cafe Oxford Street

    London – Hard Rock Cafe Oxford Street

    I haven’t grumbled about anything in a while, so now feels appropriate. I received an e-mail on behalf of Hard Rock Cafe saying that they had a 50% offer which was off all food in their Oxford Street location in London. This is a very good offer, as Hard Rock might be a little expensive, but that makes it quite a reasonable expedition to get food at half price. I’ve been to around ten Hard Rock Cafes over the years, with the service in Atlanta and Krakow being outstanding, and my visit a few months to Hard Rock Cafe Bucharest was also perfectly enjoyable.

    Anyway, after being quite interested in this offer, it was then noted that solo diners were excluded from taking part. So, group sizes of 2 to 6. I don’t much like this at the best of times, but it’s vaguely understandable as solo diners don’t make as much money. But, nor do three diners at a table for four. And, judging from recent reviews, Hard Rock Cafe Oxford Street is not exactly busy. Which is evident from their deluging food out at half price.

    I remember doing some work for a certain Italian restaurant a few years ago which was how to make solo diners welcome. This was marvellous, there are people who are on business trips, who might be lonely, key workers or just people who want to get out of the house. Ideally, the welcome should be positive and engaging for all of those, especially somewhere upbeat such as Hard Rock Cafe which can offer that friendly feel.

    Or, they could be like the management at Hard Rock Cafe in Oxford Street who puts two fingers up at solo diners. Unimpressed.

    Anyway, moving on, I can write about the rather lovely brewery I’ve just been to.

  • London – Thames Photos

    London – Thames Photos

    Back in London today, giving me an opportunity to take more night-time photos by the River Thames, a little further downstream the river than last week.

  • London – River Thames City Walk

    London – River Thames City Walk

    And another walk led by the formidable Des (the one with the bag swung nonchalantly over his shoulder) and I deliberately booked a later train back to Norwich so that I could come on this. That’s dedication…. I was fortunate that someone on the walk kindly explained how I could use my phone to take photos at night, there was a setting that I never bothered to explore. Anyway, that means I could take photos and below is the result of that experimentation.

  • London – City of London – Police Call Box

    London – City of London – Police Call Box

    This police call box, which is no longer in use, is located where Aldersgate Street joins St Martin’s Le Grand. It was installed here in 1935 and the listed building record notes that it’s a relatively rare survival. It’s a chunky piece of iron and although bits have dropped off, the instructions for use have apparently remained. They were once a handy way of alerting the police to an incident and there was no charge made for using them. They were taken out of usage in the 1960s and most were destroyed, but a handful still remain in the city.

    The police box from the side, which has recently been painted a much lighter shade of blue that it had previously. This is deliberate as paint analysis was done on these boxes and it was discovered that this was closer to the original colour scheme.

  • London – City of London – First Metropolitan Drinking Fountain

    London – City of London – First Metropolitan Drinking Fountain

    OK, so I admit that this isn’t the most interesting content ever, a photo of a water fountain at the junction of Holborn Viaduct and Giltspur Street. But I like it, so here we are….

    It’s the first fountain to be erected by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. It was placed nearby in 1859 and had to be moved to its current site in 1867 when Holborn Viaduct was constructed.

    The association was established in 1859 by Samuel Gurney, a banker from what is now Barclays, as he wanted to ensure that members of the public could access clean water. It was initially known as the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association, but changed its name in 1867 to show that it was also concerned with animals. During the mid-nineteenth century it had become known that beer was safer to drink than water, which wasn’t going down entirely well with the temperance movement.

    The association still exists, now known as the Drinking Fountain Association, with its original intentions intact, of providing water fountains to encourage water consumption.

  • London – City of London – Monument Pub

    London – City of London – Monument Pub

    We popped to this pub after Des’s rather lovely Great Fire of London walk and it’s located right by the Monument memorial. It’s Greene King, so expectations have to be lowered accordingly.

    The real ale selection on the pump clips was limited to Greene King IPA, so I had Camden Pale Ale. It tasted as it should and all that, perfectly refreshing. But, for a pub in this location, the beer choice is in my view completely inadequate and mostly just generic lagers.

    What the pub did do rather well was customer service, as the staff were fully engaged and keen to help. Welcoming, conversational and polite, the staff had delivered a laid-back and comfortable atmosphere. I’m not entirely sure that the large group crowded around one table were entirely compliant with the current rules, but there we go, that’s Greene King’s problem. They were otherwise dealing with track and trace competently, something which the chain are doing really quite well at the moment. Perhaps they could move the Head Office person responsible for track and trace over to beer selection when this is all over.

    The reviews for the pub on TripAdvisor are pretty dire, to the point that I wonder why Greene King actually link to them on their web-site. Much of the problem appears to be about their food, with the reviews on Google being a little more positive. A few customers complained about children not being allowed in after 18:00, with one customer noting that the pub didn’t understand the law and that the 2003 licensing act removed that limitation. As the pub noted, it did no such thing….

    For those popping in for a drink, this is a clean and organised pub, but I’m not sure that it offers anything particularly exciting beyond that. Decent location though, although I doubt it will be troubling the Good Beer Guide any time soon.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (Medieval Statue of St. Christopher)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (Medieval Statue of St. Christopher)

    This is a statue displayed at the Museum of London which was discovered in a Tudor Wall when Newgate Prison was being demolished in 1903. I feel that I have an affinity to St. Christopher since he’s the patron saint of travellers and I liked that the museum noted:

    “Medieval Londoners believed ‘whoever shall behold the image of St. Christopher shall not faint or fall on that day’”.

    What a rather lovely sentiment. It also meant that statues were placed in many locations around London, including the entrances to homes and bridges. The bridges element is important, as the legend goes that St. Christopher helped people across rivers, and then unbeknown to him, he helped Christ himself over a dangerous river.

    St. Christopher is also the patron saint of travel in general, so a fair few companies relying on this trade for survival might well be hoping that the saint can answer their prayers…

  • London – City of London – Crosse Keys

    London – City of London – Crosse Keys

    I’ve visited Crosse Keys in London many times over the last decade, as it’s spacious and convenient for London Liverpool Street railway station. It’s a glorious location, named after an inn that was located here before the nineteenth century. I thought I’d write something about it, as it’s listed in the Good Beer Guide and I’m working my way around that.

    This is the former banking hall of the Hong Kong and Shangai Banking Corporation and it opened in October 1913. The picture on the left is recent and the one on the right is from last year, before the current crisis.

    Easily missed, there’s also an upper area that overlooks the main part of the pub. I was sitting here last year when a staff member looking over mentioned to me that Tim Martin often sits in this area before board meetings. I have no idea how true that is, but there are some grand function rooms here.

    This was my drinks selection from this weekend, keenly priced at £1.10 each, it was a convenient table location within the pub as it was near to a plug socket. I have found myself coming here before getting the train home, as Hamilton Hall (a JD Wetherspoon outlet actually within London Liverpool railway station) is often too busy to get a seat.

    These photos are older, the burger and the chicken wrap, which for some reason I can’t recall I ordered with salad rather than chips. The selection of real ale is usually excellent, one of the widest varieties in this area of London, and all keenly priced.

    And back to the days in 2018 when this was an option with chicken club…..

    Anyway, this is one of the grandest buildings that Wetherspoons have and they’ve operated it since the 1990s. It can get busy in the evenings and at weekends, but it’s usually possible to find a table without too much of a wait because of its size. And it’s quite rightfully in the Good Beer Guide with its history and the range of real ale and craft beer.

  • London – City of London – Noble Street Roman Fort Ruins

    London – City of London – Noble Street Roman Fort Ruins

    The Second World War brought many changes to the streets of London, including the uncovering of pieces of the city’s past. The above map (click to make it larger) is from 1900 on the left and from today on the right, with Noble Street looking very different. Properties had been built backing onto the Roman wall and it had been covered up over the centuries, but the wartime bombings of the city brought the wall back into view.

    The old meets the new.

    It’s not very clear, but there’s an overlay on this panel which gives an indication of what the area looked like in Roman times.

    The Roman wall was built in one go to defend the city, starting in around 190AD and being completed by around 225AD. It served as the boundary wall of London until the medieval period and it wasn’t much changed until the sixteenth century, just some strengthening works in places.

    The bits of brickwork jutting out are from eighteenth to twentieth-century buildings that were damaged or destroyed during the Second World War. There were extensive archaeological investigations here in the late 1940s and 1950s, with a decision being made to protect the area and to prohibit redevelopment.

    A boundary marker.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (Model of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (Model of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral)

    A model at the Museum of London of the old St. Paul’s Cathedral, destroyed during the Great Fire of London in 1666. Work has started on it at the end of the eleventh century and it was already the fourth church to be located at this site. By the time it was completed it was one of the longest churches in the world and for a while, it was also the tallest building in the world.

    The building was in a state of some disrepair, not least due to the English Civil War, by the mid seventeenth century and efforts were underway to restore it. Wooden scaffolding had been placed around the building, but then the Great Fire struck, and the building had little chance, especially given the handy wooden structure around it that soon caught fire.

    And the remains of the building after the fire. It was decided to start again with a new design, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, who had also been supervising the reconstruction of the old building.

    And its replacement, the modern St. Paul’s Cathedral.