In a quick departure from my US trip content that I’m droning on about, I was saddened to hear that the Hardy Tree in London has fallen down. The Tweet below shows the state of it now….
The Hardy Tree in St Pancras Gardens (Thomas Hardy shifted the gravestones around the roots when not writing Tess of the D) has fallen down. ?@SimonLamrock pic.twitter.com/MIDZyysZRF
— Richard Osley (@RichardOsley) December 27, 2022
In a little interruption to my random piffle about my US trip….. I knew that it was coming because the manager of Goose Island’s taproom in Chicago told me last month, but Goose Island’s Shoreditch has now closed. Apparently profit making, but not falling within the requirements of Goose Island, it closed in September 2022 and has been immediately converted into the Queens Head.
I visited this bar tens of times (many of which are recorded on here….) because I considered it to be one of the best run operations in the UK and I’m glad that I got to see the manager Daniel a few weeks ago before it was too late. Impeccable service, engaging staff and a commitment to excellent beer, fine food and a welcoming atmosphere. The Chicago Goose Island manager told me that the UK team has been able to visit the Chicago taproom just before it closed, which was some form of gesture I suppose to the outstanding bar that they had in their estate.
A huge loss to the London bar scene that was vastly better than any other operation I’ve seen in the capital.
Part of my Streets of Norwich project…. [Updated in November 2023]
One of the reasons I started doing this long-winded thing of walking around every street in Norwich is that I hoped to notice some things that I hadn’t really seen before. I’ve found all manner of things I didn’t know existed, including plaques, streets and historic buildings. And, although I’ve been by it hundreds of times, I’ve never noticed Stamp Office Yard located off of St. Andrew’s Street (it’s the one in the centre of the above map, so to the left of the S of St. Andrew’s Street).
The street takes its name from a business that operated here in the eighteenth century, which stamped official documents. Although in the map above, from 1885, there were plenty of buildings in the yard, it’s all been opened up now at the rear and is mostly car parking. The building to the right hand-side of the Stamp Office Yard is St. Andrew’s House, and when that was extended in the 1970s there were plenty of medieval pottery finds.
At the 1921 census, there were two households reported as living on the street. In the first property there were six members of the Sabberton family, Frank William (aged 56), Emily (aged 59), Stanley (aged 22), Hilda (aged 25), Emily Ellen (aged 19) and Winifred (aged 16). Frank William Sabberton worked as an engineer at a clothing manufacturer, whilst Emily was noted to be working at home duties. Stanley was an engineer at Sabberton Brothers Engineers at Palace Plain, Hilda was a shorthand typist at Boulton & Paul, Emily was a clerk at Mann Egerton Cars on Prince of Wales Road, whilst Winifred was a shorthand typist at Singer Sewing who were at 16 Calvert Street in the city. In the other household was husband and wife Reginald Arthur Sabberton and Amelia Sabberton, aged 28 and 34. Reginald worked as a motor engineer for Goffs at Aylsham Road.
Part of my Streets of Norwich project…. [updated in October 2023]
Willow Lane connects St. Giles Street to Cow Hill, a looping road that is shaped by the St. Giles’s Church site. The lane takes its name from the willow trees which were once on the south side in the seventeenth century, with the Mayor of Norwich being responsible for checking them. Despite this being a relatively short road, there are nine listed buildings along it.
This is the St. Giles Street end of the road, the building on the right (which is 53 St. Giles Street) is the side of Ellis Second Hand Books and then the building behind is 1 Willow Lane, an early nineteenth-century residential property which was sold in 2019.
The next building along is a former Catholic church which was built in 1827 by JT Patience, which was then turned into a Catholic school. The building is now used by Rogers & Norton solicitors and George Plunkett has a photo of when the building was still used as a school.
Looking back towards St. Giles Street, the former church is on the left behind the fence.
What looks like a Georgian building on the left, the entrance to the former church site is now on the right of this photo.
The series of buildings on the left-hand side are early nineteenth-century residential buildings, which remain as houses. The white building on the right-hand side is number 9, also known as Willow Lane House, an eighteenth-century residential building that has been converted into offices.
The brick building on the right is 15 Willow Lane and is a seventeenth-century residential building that was extended in the nineteenth century. It was also the home of Francis Blomefield (1705-1752) who was a local historian who wrote the ‘History of Norfolk’. The building was used as a boarding house in 1939, so the register gives an interesting look at its occupants. There were:
Mary and Stanley Page (boarding house owner and husband was a hairdresser)
Barbara Dash (assistant in grocer’s shop)
Alice Nicholls (billiards room attendant)
Sarah Barber (private nurse)
Jacob Black (steel bender)
Mary Black (unpaid domestic duties, wife of Jacob)
Elizabeth Ledleve (boot and shoe branding).
There were also two other people on the register where the record remains closed, so it’s possible that they’re still alive.
Looking back the street from the Cow Hill end. The street feels very Georgian and unchanged, and there’s also the hidden property that was once the George Borrow museum, where the author lived between 1816 and 1824. However, this now has more in common with Cow Hill, so more on that in another post.
Norfolk Pubs also suggests that there might have been a licensed premises called the Cellar House located along the street in the early nineteenth century.
I don’t often do much transiting at Heathrow, but today I was going from Terminal 2 where my Aer Lingus flight landed to Terminal 3 where my American Airlines flight was departing. I had four hours or so deliberately in the schedule when planning this (so that I could enjoy the lounges), and despite the potential delays from the Queen’s funeral, that schedule worked out.
Here’s the transfer bus stop within T2 with a sign saying that there are regular buses every ten minutes. Anyway, 24 minutes later the bus arrived. Another couple were getting edgy as their flight was quite close in terms of time, whereas I was losing lounge time. Obviously mine was the most important situation that needed resolving, but I didn’t say anything.
Wooo, here comes the bus. The process was all quick from there, with another security check required because that’s what UK airports do, but there was a minimal delay with that and I was through and into the lounges within fifteen minutes of that bus setting off.
I do take decadent photos to surprise and delight readers…. This is one of the bathroom units at Cathay Pacific, which also has shower facilities. Note all the complimentary stuff in the little boxes, but I decided to just take the toothpaste as I’ve decided to keep my bag as light as possible during this trip. Fully refreshed, it was time for food.
I’ve written about the T3 lounges many times before on this blog, so a search will help any readers wanting to read my previous missives. In short, Oneworld status passengers can use the BA, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas lounges regardless of which Oneworld airline they are travelling with, although the American Airlines one is currently closed. This is the menu from the Cathay Pacific lounge, where food is cooked to order, although there’s a self-service British section as well.
I went for the BBQ fried pork rice although with my regular order of the Mix Dimsum basket. As ever, it was delicious, as was the Guinness which is the first time I’ve seen that in this lounge.
I then rushed off (there’s no time to waste on days such as this) to the Qantas lounge as I’m just a little obsessed with their salt and pepper squid, but here’s the rest of the menu options. I’m not travelling next year so will lose my silver Oneworld status, but I’ll likely be getting it back soon enough in 2024 as I can’t miss out on the delights of menus like this. Yes, there’s more to life than this, but this is a bloody useful contribution to it.
Beautiful, melt in the mouth stuff…..
I remained in the Qantas lounge until it was time for my flight and I was slightly surprised to see that the majority of everyone there was watching the build-up to the Queen’s funeral on the lounge’s TVs. By nature of the lounge, most of the people there seemed to be Australian and some people had built themselves almost like little nests packed with food and drink where they could watch proceedings from. It was a reminder to me of the level of interest that people around the world have in the life and work of Queen Elizabeth II.
It was a lovely few hours, but I had a plane to New York to catch…..
Suitably refreshed after visits to the Qantas and Cathay Pacific lounges, it was time to board the American Airlines flight from Heathrow T3 to JFK T8. See, I did tell readers that this trip would eventually get to the US! There was strict adherence to boarding by groups, despite the best efforts of some passengers to try and get on earlier than the group number on their ticket. The staff member said “group 3 now and anyone from groups 1 and 2 yet to board” and a passenger said to her “does that include group 8?” to which she replied that no it didn’t. Boarding was sluggish though, the flight departed 45 minutes late given the slow boarding and stowing of bags.
I had a bulkhead seat which gave me plenty of space and legroom. The aircraft was a Boeing 777-300, registration N722AN, which has been operated by American Airlines since they acquired it new in 2013. I was happy with this seat which I had been able to book for free before the flight, it felt comfortable on what was an entirely full flight. Apparently there was just one empty seat on the flight and that was someone at the airport who had cleared security but gone missing. I could hear the crew member say that he was likely asleep in a lounge and that it was too late to get anyone on stand-by onto the aircraft to replace him. With American Airlines, you can see how many people are on stand-by for each class and they got nearly everyone on board.
Legroom on the other seats looked manageable, but not entirely comfortable, especially if someone reclined into that space. I didn’t have to worry about that issue fortunately and I think the person behind with child was likely relieved that I didn’t recline either.
I didn’t use the in-flight entertainment as not much seemed particularly interesting, despite their claims of hundreds of hours of content with something for every taste. I did though watch an episode of the US version of The Office before getting bored and reverting back to podcasts.
The main meal service, I went for the chicken, green beans and starch option, although I was puzzled as to what that starch was. There was also a salad with dressing, a roll, crackers with cheese and then a carrot cake. I thought it was entirely satisfactory, nothing exceptional and the starch didn’t sound overly appetising, but it all tasted OK and it kept me amused for fifteen minutes or so.
I went for American Airlines over British Airways as they offer Dr. Pepper and have air vents. Simple things and simple minds….
In between naps, I went for Sprite as I managed to run them out of Dr. Pepper. I had quite a lot of little naps during my flight. Fortunately, there were power points on board so I had everything fully charged, and still had chance to lend the charger to my neighbour (on the plane, not in Norwich) as they couldn’t get theirs to work.
The personable crew member came to offer everyone an ice cream, mentioning to give it twenty minutes as it was so hard. He took a long time getting through the cabin as he kept talking to passengers, I got the impression that he rather liked his job, or he certainly looked like he did judging by his interactions. Indeed, all of the American Airlines crew were friendly, informal and they seemed to work well as a team, it give a positive ambience to the arrangements.
The breakfast options were beef or vegetarian pockets. Everyone else seemed to be going for the vegetarian one, but I was brave and went for beef and the crew member commented on my bravery. Not the most encouraging thing to say after ordering a meal, but the food was fine, although it was mostly pocket and not much beef.
A little girl came to talk to me as she wanted to look at my phone and see photos of my children. After checking her parents were content with this plan, which they were as they were trying to deal with a crying young baby, I checked she would be satisfied just with photos of a friend’s children. She was and we then went through hundreds of photos of Liam’s children who she decided that she liked. She thought Liam’s girl was her favourite as she looked the naughtiest.
The problem with airbridges is that it makes it hard to take photos, as opposed to when passengers are allowed to walk down steps. Anyway, the aircraft is in the photo to the left and that’ll have to do. There were a ridiculous 45 minute wait on the ground to get a stand, before another ninety minute wait at border control. They didn’t try any interrogation on this occasion, the officer just checked if I was in the US for tourism or business. I remember when a border control agent asked me a few years ago if I believed in the JFK rumours that he was killed by the secret service, which is quite a tricky question to know how to answer when arriving tired into a new country.
Anyway, the flight had made good time and there were no delays to the services I had taken during the time because of the Queen’s funeral which was potentially going to impact operations at Heathrow. It had been a good day.
This is terminal 8 where American Airlines and British Airways are combining operations, after many years for BA at Terminal 7. There’s a fair chunk of construction work going on at the moment and there’s going to be one large Oneworld lounge, albeit separated into three sections depending on class (of the flight, not of the individual) and loyalty scheme status. This model is likely to become more common I suspect, it feels odd that there are four Oneworld lounges at Heathrow T3, much as I like that situation.
The sun shines through the terminal windows at T5 lighting up the delights of Gate A9, which was fortunately not the bus gate (which is A10). The boarding process was all orderly and no-one stood in front of the queueing area, which made things much easier for the staff. Although the flight is to Dublin, this is effectively a domestic flight for purposes of border security, the staff don’t need to check passports at the gate, it’s just a photo image they take and that’s an automated process.
I boarded early, but the flight transpired to be relatively busy. It’s aircraft G-EUOF, an Airbus A319 which British Airways have had since October 2001. They really get their money’s worth from these aircraft, it’s doing six flights today, from Geneva to Heathrow, from Heathrow to Dublin, from Dublin to Heathrow, from Heathrow to Madrid, from Madrid to Heathrow and from Heathrow to Amsterdam.
My exit row seat, with the middle seat not being filled on the flight. I fell asleep soon after boarding, fortunately waking just as they handed out the water and cereal bar (which are still in my bag) before having another little sleep. Very restful. This is the big advantage in British Airways over Ryanair or WizzAir, who bang and clank down the aisle trying to sell things. It’s not the fault of the hard-working crew at these airlines, just the model in which they have to work. It was the usual professionally operated flight, the pilots were reassuring and gave useful announcements, whilst the crew were endlessly polite and efficient.
Safely in Dublin, arriving around five minutes early.
There are only six Play aircraft, the relatively new budget airline which operates from Iceland.
The border control process at Dublin is easy for UK passport holders. They do no checks on the passport on their computers, they just check that it’s a UK passport and that the image looks like the passenger in front of them. I think I was at the desk for around three seconds, it was almost as good as being in Schengen, not that that’s looking likely for the UK in the next few decades.
As is just about visible for anyone zooming into the image to look at the screen, I arrived at the gate at 05:29 for my 06:30 flight. I left the lounge at 05:28 thinking it might take twenty minutes to get to the gate. It didn’t. I refuse to ever be realistic in case the one time that I’m not, I’ll be delayed somehow en route and miss my flight.
Here’s the Aer Lingus flight having landed into Heathrow T2, as I couldn’t get a photo in Dublin. The aircraft was at capacity and I boarded towards the end (no status with Aer Lingus) which didn’t much matter as I had an aisle seat. Nothing is provided free of charge on Aer Lingus in terms of refreshments, but there is a trolley going around selling food and drink. I can’t add much detail to the flight since I was asleep for the entirety of it, but I’m sure it was lovely.
For reference (more mine than anyone else), this was an A320, registration EI-DVE, which Aer Lingus have operated since they acquired in new in 2007.
It felt appropriate to land at Heathrow T2 on the day of the Queen’s funeral, as this is the Queen’s Terminal. Despite dire warnings from Aer Lingus about delays on the day of the funeral, including trying to get me to change my flight, everything went to clockwork in terms of the flights. Although to be fair to Aer Lingus, they did have to cancel some of their flights later on during the day, so the situation probably felt quite fluid last week.
Well, we’re off (I say we, it’s just me on this trip) and the first part of the expedition was getting to Heathrow T5. Luckily my ever-ready friend Liam was willing to take me to Heathrow T5, avoiding a potentially expensive hotel which I would have only been in for a short period of time.
As Liam has an electric car we had to factor a couple of charging points, with the first meant to be at Harlow. However, a horde of taxi drivers (is that the correct name?) were using the facilities and we would have been quite some time waiting for them. They’re not in the photo, I didn’t want to look rude by taking a photo of them. There seem to be ever more electric charging points being added to the network, but it’s still not comprehensive coverage and there’s little protection from a queue of taxi drivers wanting to use them.
We drove on a bit and found what seemed a slightly ridiculous set-up at a business park which seemed in the dark to be in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure it’s very vibrant in the day, but it felt rather shady at night.
Car charging doesn’t get any more decadent than this. Parking is free on Sunday, so I got a ticket printed from the machine in case we were meant to have one. I didn’t expect to see a parking attendant though at this time of the morning.
All was going very well, Liam’s had checked the app of where people were charging and that saw us glide into our second location at Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire. He went off to get a coffee for £1, a perk that you get when charging cars at BP petrol stations it seems. After 25 minutes or so, we were good to to.
Heathrow annoys me, it doesn’t let you walk in, it has scrapped the free travel zone and it now charges for drop offs. Far from ideal, but they do at least allow free drop-offs at the long-stay car parking. You get 29 minutes to park there for free, with buses operating every ten minutes or so. Liam, who built some of Heathrow T5, was pleased to see that this is on the site of his former works car park. I did wonder where to get the bus from at first, then Liam realised that it was the huge big bus shelter at the entrance to the car park, which is a very sensible place to put it.
I was busy taking photos having just got to the bus stop when I realised that the bus to T5 was coming to the stop, Liam had timed the drop-off perfectly. So, it’s quite a blurry photo, but the driver had a big smile and seemed unnervingly content for 04:30 in the morning.
It’s only a five minute or so journey on the bus to Heathrow T5, so in terms of drop-offs, it is convenient and saves paying the £5 fee.
Some professional signage there. But the service was timely, the bus was clean and it’s fast and efficient, so definitely worth considering for those who want to avoid the Heathrow drop-off charges. I’m not sure if you’re meant to, but you could actually just avoid paying for the TFL bus into Heathrow T5 and just get on this bus from the long-stay car park.
My obligatory “welcome to our home” photo, which has again come out blurry. I didn’t get the sleep that I had hoped for, which is also not ideal, but I’ll muddle on by. I’m not going directly to the United States, that’s not until tomorrow, I’m first going to Dublin.
Heathrow is commemorating HM Queen Elizabeth II in numerous ways, including on these large signs.
Timing wise, this was all rather lovely, the security process took around twelve minutes and I arrived at the entrance to the lounge one minute before it opened at 05:00. Liam is getting very good at this timing thing (he has been known to cut things far too fine) and it was very kind of him to do the dropping off. Hopefully he has good fortune using the chargers on his way back to Norwich.
Liam’s impressive timing meant that I got to the airport at a perfect time, not too early (my usual style) and not too late (his usual style). I arrived at the Heathrow T5 BA lounge complex at 04:59, one minute before it opened. Very handy.
I was the first person into Galleries South lounge, that’s never happened before. I can’t claim it’s something that I should get a badge for, but it did let me get some photos without other passengers cluttering them up. This is the main food area in this photo where they were laying out breakfast.
One of the seating areas, this one is just behind where passengers enter the lounge. These lounges do sprawl and there are three of these Galleries Lounges for BA customers at T5, two in the main terminal and one at B Gates (plus the First Class Lounge and the Concorde Room, which are too decadent for me).
The seating area at the end of the lounge which overlooks south security, with the cinema room off to the right.
And my favourite seating area, high chairs and power points, very convenient for my laptop arrangement.
Another photo at the back of the lounge. You used to be able to overlook security until they put that sea of grey over the windows, which is understandable, but I did used to like watching it.
One of the coffee stations and sets of beer fridges, where I was pleased to see that Brewdog Jet Stream was available. I had a few espressos to wake me up, although I’m not sure that they worked that well.
The cinema room.
I only had one beer as it was a bit early. I was pleased to see that the lounge had burnt the bacon, which is good as that’s just how I like it. Those sausage patties are very moreish as well. The BA food offering has definitely improved recently at this lounge (and non burnt bacon was also available).
Some healthy eating. Along with some grapes.
Anyway, my three hours in the lounge was very productive, although I was a little sleepy. The lounge was starting to get very busy when I left, so I was pleased with my timing.
I’ve photographed this before, but it’s just an iconic image and so I thought I’d have another image of it.
