I don’t think I’ve seen such frenzied pigeon behaviour since the days of when people were encouraged to feed them in London’s Trafalgar Square. Numerous Croydon locals decided to watch the pigeons enjoy their breakfast of bits of bread….
Anyway, that’s enough nature photography.
This must be quite a scary thing to stumble across in the dark, although, I suspect Holland Park isn’t open at night which does avoid that dilemma….. It’s an artwork by Sean Henry and a text about the artist’s sculptures in this series (and he’s created numerous different versions within the theme) notes:
“His figurative sculptures are self–contained, often pensive, and preoccupied by their inner imaginings and on occasion verge on melancholic representations of our human existence.”
There was meant to be an exhibition by Henry on this month in London, although the current crisis means it has been cancelled or postponed. There’s an interesting on-line version though at https://experience.osbornesamuel.com/waiting-for-the-sun/virtual-tour/.
With regards to the above artwork in Holland Park, Henry notes:
“The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea have joined forces with the Friends of Holland Park this month to purchase Sean Henry’s final cast of ‘Walking Man’ 1998 for permanent installation in the beautiful grounds of Holland Park, West London. A privately owned version of the sculpture had been on loan to the Royal Borough from 2000 until recently, and the new sculpture will stand in the same location, close to the famous Kyoto Gardens.”
I’m not sure I entirely understand it, but I like the concept and where the artist can go with it. A nice choice by the council.
This rather lovely looking street is located next to Holland Park itself and seems to be a quiet environment. It has 67 different properties on it and it was constructed between 1860 and 1879 as stables for the properties on either side.
Here’s how it looked in the late nineteenth century, with the stables being on the ground floor (obviously, it would be fiddly if they weren’t) and servants from the villas would live above. These have since been converted to residential properties, now with garages below. The conversions have taken place in a rather piecemeal way, as the listed building record suggests:
“Some houses unsuitably altered with ground floor remodelled or stairs removed and some without balustrades.”
I had a look at some of the property prices of the houses down here, they’re now priced at around £2 million to £4 million each. That’s some change from when they were once stables….
Conveniently located near to the Royal Albert DLR station, I picked this hotel as there was an offer on points which I thought I’d take advantage of. The check-in was efficient and the Government’s slightly onerous rules were explained by a helpful member of staff. Normally there is an offer of a welcome drink or bonus points, but they were just giving extra points which seemed reasonable enough given the current Tier 2 situation.
The room, all clean and well presented. However, I wasn’t that keen on the whole arrangement as this is one of those hermetically sealed hotels with no opening windows. That was coupled with a decision made by the hotel to set the temperature to that similar to that of a furnace in full operation. Making that worse was that the air conditioning was very basic, so customers can’t set it (there was a panel on the wall, more as a placebo effect as the hotel is all heated or cooled to the same temperature). It’s just a decision to do things on the cheap by IHG and it means I won’t stay here again. As an aside, I’d heard about a travel writer saying the best thing to do was to soak a towel in cold water and put under your feet or head, and that worked rather well. But it’s hardly ideal.
I risked going down to breakfast at the “very busy, queues are highly likely” time. Although it makes me wonder why the hotel hasn’t changed the capacity to deal with that, but that’s a different matter for when the hospitality industry recovers.
Here’s the very busy breakfast area.
And the queues.
There was a full English breakfast option available, but I opted for a bacon butty which was of a perfectly good quality. The drinks options were coffee, tea, pre-packaged juices and the like, but given the challenging times at the moment, this was all sufficient. Incidentally, the staff members were making a huge effort to explain the breakfast arrangements, take orders and engage with customers.
So, if the hotel hadn’t skimped on its air conditioning arrangements then I might come here again as the staffing was on point and everything seemed clean and professionally run. For those who don’t mind warmer rooms, it’s probably all quite unproblematic as a hotel though.
I know that these drinking fountains are of marginal interest really, but I like them, a reminder of the time that many Londoners needed access to them to get clean water. This one dates to 1860, although they had to shuffle it around when they rebuilt the church.
Nice Norman style arch decoration.
And here’s what it looked like over 100 years ago.
I perhaps need to stop coming here, but this bar is a constant delight to me. I won’t repeat all the stuff I’ve mentioned in my previous three visits (all of which I’ve written up, to ensure people can be surprised and delighted with my ramblings). I booked a table for tonight, and they dealt with that helpfully by e-mail, although I didn’t really need to book as it was very quiet. I was offered a choice of table (as in pretty much any table in the entire place), but I sat at the rear bit for the first time, next to some of their brewing equipment.
Some more of the decor…. The service was, as ever, engaging, knowledgeable, helpful and friendly. For a central London bar to be this consistently reliable is an achievement in my admittedly slightly irrelevant opinion.
In London, and in other Tier 2 areas, it’s essential to order a substantial meal with any alcoholic drink. So, I ordered buttermilk chicken strips and they were delightful, a light coating which was soft and not overly crunchy, with tender chicken. The BBQ sauce added flavour and richness, the spring onions some extra texture. The staff member explained that they’ve reprinted the menu to show which dishes are classed as substantial meals and it’s evident they’re staying firmly within the rules and the spirit of the rules. They don’t class chips as a substantial meal.
But, putting the food to one side, I’d had my eye on one beer all day, which was the Big Trouble in Little Gateshead from The River Brew Co. up in Gateshead. The reviews were very positive on Untappd, although I was nervous about a 14% stout, as too much alcohol can be just too rich and hide any flavours. This one was decadence in a glass, and I shall do my flowery words again which likely go too far. But, there were different flavours, an initial creamy taste, rich in body, but with sweet afternotes and that ABV didn’t hide anything. It remained a powerful drink though, one that allowed me to sip it for the best part of an hour. All a third of a pint of it. Perhaps I need to get out more.
As a bonus, the drink was £5 for a third of a pint. To my delight though, Amex have started to operate another Shop Small, so I got £5 off the bill. So, thank you very much Amex for funding this rather beautiful stout. And Goose Island didn’t disappoint me at all. I think I might go back. Again.
This park is of some considerable importance in the history of the Whitechapel area of London, as it’s where St. Mary Matfelon church once stood. This church was created as a chapel at ease in around 1250 and it stood until 1286, with this being a simple structure which was covered in whitewash, hence the name of White Chapel. A more substantial church, St. Mary Matfelon, was built in 1329 and this was extended and expanded numerous times over the next few centuries. As an aside, I like the idea of the Head of Parks having a 24-hour phone number.
Here’s what it looked like around 100 years ago, but unfortunately the church was bombed during the Second World War and knocked down a few years later. A new church had been built in 1877 (partly on top of the earlier churches), but, and this isn’t ideal, it burnt down in 1880. A new one was constructed and that’s the one that was lost during the bombings on 29 December 1940.
An interesting park entrance with that stone. There was an archaeological dig a few years ago and amongst the items found there were some Roman items and evidence of Roman cremations, with this once being the route of the main Roman road from London to Colchester.
The Whitechapel Road side (which is the old Roman road), with what appears in places to be an older wall for the church.
Some of the floor tiles and structure of the church are still in situ. The tiles don’t seem to be as protected as they could perhaps be.
There are very few burials here now (well, there probably are, but they’re unmarked), this is one of the grand box tombs.
Although my interest in this park was initially its history, it would be remiss of me not to mention that it is no longer formally known as St. Mary’s Park, instead being known as Altab Ali Park. Ali was a 25-year old Bangladeshi man who was murdered near here in 1978 in a racist attack, something that was causing problems and fear in London at the time. His death has been seen as a turning point as there was a large demonstration with 7,000 people on a few days later to protest about the racist attacks, with awareness raised of the huge challenges that existed.
I’m not entirely sure that the official name of this is “the Spitalfields Column”, but that’s what it seems to be called by some locals and so that’s good enough for me. It’s a totem pole type structure and it was placed here in 1995, designed by Richard Perry and he hasn’t given the sculpture a name on his web-site. The depictions on the column are meant to represent the items that would have been traded in the Whitechapel area of the city over the last few centuries. Shame there’s not a nearby information panel to add some details and background to this though.
Norwich station now that travel has been opened up again, the 11:00 service to London. The railway station wasn’t particularly busy, but there were plenty of staff available. This was a £10 fare booked directly with Greater Anglia, but I only seemed to be able to get a ticket downloaded to my phone rather than a paper ticket.
The train was ready and waiting on the platform, and, it still looks beautiful.
And then I realised this is one of Greater Anglia’s Stansted Express trains, dumped onto the mainline between Norwich and London. I don’t like these trains as there are no tables, so people have to prop laptops and food on their laps and it just leads to drink spillages and people putting their feet on the seats. Unbelievably, or at least to me, Greater Anglia say the reason is “it makes the carriages feel very open and spacious”. I’m really not convinced that customers prefer it like this, but, even if Stansted customers hate tables then there’s always the risk that the trains get used elsewhere. Like on this journey.
Anyway, moan over, I expect this was another one of Jamie Burles’s little ideas.
The train remained pretty quiet until near London. As it’s the train from Stansted, there’s no buffet car, but there was a trolley service for customers. For the first time in months, the conductors are checking tickets again, which I think surprised a few customers. One didn’t have their railcard, but after much debate, the conductor decided that this wasn’t a problem. I’m not sure why he made it a problem in the first place, but I quite enjoy drama like that.
And safely into London. The train broke down for 13 minutes at Diss, but they were able to make up much of that time, which annoyed me again as I was hoping for a delay repay claim, although it was handy to arrive nearly on time. Anyway, the next debacle then starts as Greater Anglia’s lovely new ticketing system doesn’t work, so there’s a queue of customers who have to have their tickets on phones checked manually by gate staff. Lesson learned for me, I’ll get a paper ticket next time…..
The National Army Museum is very proud of having this item in its collections, it’s an original wooden sign that was in a dangerous location at a junction on the Menin Road leading from Menin to Ypres. Many soldiers would have gone by the sign during the First World War, but the area was under near constant attack by German soldiers whose nearby defences meant that they had good visibility and it became a very dangerous stretch of road.
There’s a stone marker at the site now, an otherwise innocuous roundabout on the outskirts of Ypres. The marker is one of a series which show the furthest point that the German troops were able to reach.
The sign was brought back from Belgium by William Storie (above) and he used it as a promotional device to encourage sales at his shop in Edinburgh. The above photo was taken in March 1920, with the sign being seemingly nearly undamaged since then, although it seems to have spent much of its life in a storeroom before being donated to the National Army Museum in 1996.
There’s an interesting video above which shows Hellfire Corner (i) during the First World War, (ii) before the roundabout was constructed and (iii) how it looks now. It’s possible to see an earlier Hellfire Corner sign in the video, but the National Army Museum believes the one on display is the final one from that location.
