I was five minutes later for my visit to Little Creatures, because this happened in mid-May when I thought the weather might be quite moderate. I didn’t think that it was ideal as the hail was like people chucking gravel at my head (well, I’ve never had anyone chuck gravel at me, but I’ve used my imagination), so I had to hide in the entrance to a shopping centre….. The whole weather arrangement caused joy amongst the children in the area though.
I had only vaguely heard of Little Creatures, but they’re a United States operation which has now expanded to locations mostly in Asia and Australasia, but also now in London. They’ve got themselves quite an on-trend location in the new area to the north of King’s Cross St Pancras, which is all rather in keeping with their modern image.
All modern and shiny inside, although it wasn’t overly busy when I arrived in the early evening. The staff here are suitably engaging as I would expect for a chain such as this, friendly and welcoming. They serve food as well such as burgers and flatbreads, and they even have cauliflower bites for those who fancy nibbling on, well, a cauliflower.
Little Creatures are very much about their IPA, so I didn’t go for their beer and instead went for two options from Fourpure brewery, which were the Citrus Session IPA and the Last Train stout. Not necessarily the cheapest, but the on-line ordering system was easy enough to use. There is poor phone signal in the premises, which the staff warn customers about when they arrive, so it’s fairly essential to connect to the free wi-fi. The beer isn’t perhaps the most exotic either, they stock a fair chunk of Magic Rock Brewing products and although I like those, they’re easy to find in supermarkets.
Anyway, this was all a nice environment, welcoming, clean and organised. For the ideal visit, perhaps some rather more decadent or unique beers might be a useful innovation. All on-trend and comfortable though, not a bad choice for a group visit.
Judging from the price of hotels in the city, there is still not a huge enthusiasm to travel to London at the moment, not least with the obvious lack of international tourists and business travellers. This was the keenly priced Travelodge Docklands, which is a shortish walk from Canary Wharf that came to a total price of £24.99. Staffing here was minimal, but friendly, which suffices me when paying £24.99.
I’m not sure that Travelodge rooms vary much, and they haven’t departed from the standard here. All clean and well presented, and most importantly perhaps (to me) they have windows that actually open so that the room isn’t hermetically sealed. There were no noise issues either internally or externally, I suspect partly as there weren’t that many people actually in the hotel. But either way, that made for a peaceful night. Although I’d add that it’s quite a hike to get back to reception if you’ve placed in a room right in the far corner of the hotel. But if I can walk 100 miles (have I mentioned that before?) then I can get back to reception I suppose.
The view from the room, with Canary Wharf over on the left-hand side. For those who like taking their cars everywhere, there’s a large car park on site although I suspect they might charge a hefty sum for that. I wasn’t burdened by such issues though, the DLR stop is a three minute walk away.
The most exciting element for me was the history behind this whole site, as until 100 years ago, this was East India Docks. The Travelodge sits towards the top of East India Import Dock, but all of this is now gone, with the exception of the East India Dock Basin which is still there. The streets in the area around the Travelodge are named after products which were once imported into these docks, such as Coriander Avenue, Rosemary Drive, Saffron Avenue, Nutmeg Lane, Sorrel Lane and Clove Crescent.
My room was somewhere about where that boat is in the centre at the front, so it’s fair to say that quite a lot has changed here since this illustration was made around 200 years ago.
Anyway, for £24.99 I thought it was all excellent value for money. I suspect it’s usually a lot more than that and so perhaps less exciting value for what is quite a basic hotel. I didn’t need their wi-fi, but that’s a chargeable service (there’s 30 minutes free) and the whole arrangement is all more functional rather than luxurious.
I had a little look on TripAdvisor and the hotel isn’t badly reviewed, although there are of course some angry customers. The hotel’s lack of mattress protectors is incredibly brave of them, since they’ll end up chucking mattresses away at quite a pace (or picking up negative reviews about that). I liked the “upon arrival in the room there was no Kit Kat chocolate bar”, which reminds me of an episode of The Hotel with Mark Jenkins.
And the customer who was “shocked” at:
“The room cleaning service women was from Eastern Europe which is not an issue but the issue I had with her was she didn’t speak or understand a word of English”.
Odds are they did understand quite a lot of words of English (but studiously ignored the guest), but I’m not sure why a guest really needs an in-depth conversation with the room cleaning staff anyway, who are probably distracted with cleaning rooms. There was another angry guest that check-in is “very late”, despite it being 3pm which is hardly unusual.
And another guest who noted:
“To top it off there were people running around in their underwear in reception.”
I suppose readers have to picture the scene as they feel appropriate, as no more details were given. But my favourite of all was:
“We requested a wake up call and taxi for the following morning but nobody woke us up”.
The hotel reminded the customer that Travelodge don’t offer wake up calls, but I’d like to hear more about what the staff members had promised. A mischievous evening staff member perhaps…..
The Hammerton Brewery has been trading since 2014, although they brought back the name of an historic brewery that had closed in the late 1950s. I’ve had some rather decent beers from Hammerton in the past, so thought this made a handy taproom to visit. I booked on-line earlier in the week, although it didn’t like me trying to book a table for myself (it needed two people). I booked anyway with a note on the booking, but didn’t receive a reply and so I assumed they were content with what I’d done.
Normally I write about how good customer service is at pubs and breweries, indeed, it’s perhaps just a little dull how I keep writing about the engagement and passion of the staff. The staff weren’t unfriendly here, but they weren’t really engaging with any customers in a way that I thought they might. Not this overly bothered me, being British I don’t need too much social interaction.
In a bid not to be too awkward, I just booked a table for two (as I have already mentioned I had to) in an uncovered area. This was loyally provided, although I suspect it might have been better to just move me to a table that was undercover and larger since they had so few other customers. They didn’t complain though when I self-upgraded when it started to rain. I was slightly humoured when a table for two turned up and were then shown to a table that was drenched in water and that didn’t seem ideal.
Anyway, I was perfectly content here and had no complaints, it just wasn’t quite what I expected in terms of customer engagement, especially given the incredible beers that they brew.
It’s all a perfectly serviceable set-up and they had a pop-up kitchen offering calzone pizzas, which I thought was a rather lovely idea. The food offering changes to add some variety to proceedings. Ordering is done via an app and that all seemed to work well, with beers brought out within a couple of minutes of ordering.
The inside is closed due to the current lockdown situation, but it’s an on-trend and fun sort of place. I say on-trend, it’s an industrial unit, but they’ve done it up nicely. I don’t really do interior decor commentary if I’m being honest. Bung a few beer barrels, a couple of pot plants, a dangling electricity cable and I’ll happily call it on-trend if there’s craft beer.
Before anyone comments, these are actually slightly over-poured as I had ordered half pints, so there were no short measures. One thing I do feel best to dwell on here is that Hammerton make some bloody good beers. Actually some seriously good beers, and they way exceeded my expectations. I knew Hammerton for their cans of Crunch, which is a peanut butter milk stout stocked in many pubs, not least the Artichoke in Norwich.
I had four half pints at the brewery, namely Wald, Le Roux Project, Pecilla and City of Cake. All of these are stouts, and it’s rare that I get such a plentiful choice of these in one venue (and they had another two stouts on top of those). City of Cake is a chocolate fudge cake milk stout, Pecilla is a vanilla & pecan pastry stout, Le Roux Project is a chocolate salted caramel pastry stout and Wald is an Black Forest Gateau imperial stout.
Despite all four beers being delightful, it’s the Wald that I feel I shall dwell on here for the longest. Their tasting notes say:
“Wald, this year’s Black Forest Gateau Stout brewed with a more complex malt bill, to create a strong, deep, rich, milk stout. Then conditioned on 140kg of fresh cherries, balancing roasted coffee and chocolate notes with aromas of vanilla, caramel and cherry”.
Very decadent. And this is one of the best beers that I’ve had, certainly full-bodied and it felt like an imperial stout in terms of the alcohol content whilst also retaining some sweetness. The cherries were up-front in the flavour, but there was a rich chocolate and cherry aftertaste that was as strong as a cherry brandy liqueur. Smooth, not too powerful and with subtle notes to add to the whole proceedings. And that of course all sounds pretentious, but this was a beautiful beer and apologies to my friends who I felt the need to tell immediately about the situation.
It’s fair to say that I was pleased that I visited Hammerton and I shall likely opt for their beers whenever I see them again in the future.
Like the yards of Norwich, I rather expected the series of courts off Fleet Street to have some kind of long heritage.
But, at first this didn’t seem to be the case. The red cursor on the above map from 1920 shows where the court goes through the building today. Indeed, on late nineteenth century maps, it shows that this was the site of a pub rather than a court. The court takes its name from the nearby medieval church of St Dunstan in the West (this makes sense as there’s another one in the East, albeit mostly destroyed during the Second World War, which isn’t too far from the Tower of London).
However, the 1886 Insurance Plan of London shows that the court was there and this tallies up with 160 Fleet Street being the Hole in the Wall pub. The court doesn’t really go anywhere, it just reaches what was a playground in 1886 and then joins onto Bolt Court, which is as it is today (although the playground has gone). Also visible in this map is an electrotype facility, a useful and quite modern publishing device at the time. There’s a photo on Wikipedia of a set-up in 1902 that was used at the New York Herald, and I imagine that it was equally cramped.
Each of the courts off Fleet Street on the north side of the road has tablets which show the heritage of the newspaper industry, which is what this area was once known for. This one shows the 1980s computerised printing technology that was introduced, that brought about the demise of the traditional printed processes. The usage of the Space Invaders as an example of something from the 1980s is perhaps a little obscure, but it stands out on the pavement.
There was a court case heard at the Mansion House in September 1896 when a Mr Charles Pensotti was accused of stealing letters from a post box on St. Dunstan’s Court. He had been interfering with letters placed there by Dean & Son, a publisher of some note, who wondered why cheques and postal orders had been going missing. When arrested, Pensotti was found to have a number of blank cheque books and six picklock keys, but he said to the police that it was a big mistake.
This area near East India Dock has changed considerably over the last 100 years, with the bulk of the docks now completely filled in. Just to the left of the cursor on the above map is where the Virginia Settlers’ Memorial is now located.
The buildings to the left of this photo are on Jamestown Way, standing on what 100 years ago was Blackwall railway station, although that closed in 1926. There’s a DLR station of that name today, but it’s a little distance away.
It was from this location in Blackwall on 19 December 1606 that three ships, Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery, set sail for the new world. It took them four months to get there, which I can’t imagine was a pleasant cruising arrangement, and then two thirds of the settlers died by 1608 when further relief ships arrived. It was all an enterprise established by the London Company who wanted to establish a series of colonial settlements along the coast in what is now the United States, not a project that went entirely well.
The plaque here was placed on a nearby building in 1928 by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, but that structure was badly damaged during air raid bombings during the Second World War. The memorial plaque was moved onto this current memorial in 1951 following an unveiling which was attended by the United States Ambassador. The memorial was left abandoned and was vandalised, with someone pinching the mermaid that was on top, although in 1999 this was replaced by an astrolabe following the redevelopment of the nearby residential properties. It’s all a much more salubrious area today, peaceful and with extensive views along the River Thames.
I wonder what those who set sail over 400 years ago would have thought about the Millennium Dome (or whatever it’s called now) in the background, and indeed what would they have thought about Virginia today. There’s not much at Jamestown now, which is where the settlers ended up, just a heritage site noting the colonial landings. The plaque notes those who went on the ships as “adventurers” and it’s hard to deny that since they founded the first permanent English colony in America.
I thought that this was really quite striking on Trafalgar Road in Greenwich, an artwork created by Conor Harrington as part of the London Mural Festival. There are photographs of the artwork being created at https://arrestedmotion.com/2020/10/streets-conor-harrington-london-mural-festival/. The site in the front of the photo was going to be used for housing, but agreement hasn’t yet been reached with the local council as to how that’s all going to work out. The artist said that his artwork was “big flag energy”, all part of the debate about international policy.
I was slightly surprised to see this at Canary Wharf, Greggs are opening their first ever outlet in the capital’s financial district. I always thought that this shopping centre was like Heathrow T5, where they tried to avoid any cheaper brands for fear of it damaging the prestige of their retail operation. I’m glad that sense has prevailed, and perhaps even Heathrow T5 will have a Greggs before we know it….
I would say what a time to be alive, but that might be overkill just because a new Greggs is opening.
This is the current art installation on the fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square and it’s the thirteenth to be placed there since this project started in 1998. The installation is by Heather Phillipson and the description reads:
“This sculpture attempts to address the specific physical context of the square, whilst considering a broader ideological one. How do we negotiate congregation, the intimacy of personal experience, broadcast and surveillance in one space?”
That puts it better than I can as I didn’t really understand it.
What I hadn’t realised before is that if you go to https://web102.secure-secure.co.uk/theend.today/, then it’s possible to see a live feed from the drone which is on the fourth plinth. I was in a bit of a rush to get a train and so I’m not really that visible in the above image, but that’ll do, it is definitely me (although mostly my shadow, but perhaps that’s in keeping with the art installation).
This is my first rail journey of 2021 and it’s certainly a step-up from the bus travel that I’ve been limited to for the last few months. It wasn’t busy at Norwich railway station with just a few people walking around the concourse, a couple peering into the M&S that has remained closed since March 2020. I still think that should have been a Greggs, but I don’t go on about it…..
This is one of the Greater Anglia fleet that has no tables, as passenger surveys have apparently told them that customers don’t like them. I make no comment….. Anyway, the train was clean, shiny and nearly completely empty. Everything on the train was working though, including the power and even all the toilets were functional. How lovely.
One of the slight problems with the rail journey into London is that it stopped at Witham, one of the few towns in Essex that I haven’t visited. I looked at TripAdvisor to see the top four rated attractions in the town and they are (i) a walk by the river, (ii) the library, (iii) the statue of Dorothy L Sayers and (iv) the town hall information centre. Given that, and with respect to the denizens of the town, I might wait just a little longer before making a proper visit.
Anyway, there were plenty of Greater Anglia staff to guide customers onto the buses which would take us to Newbury Park. I’m not sure where Greater Anglia had found these staff, but they were particularly friendly and engaging, all a really organised effort.
I try not to complain about things, but on my bus travels in recent years I’ve discovered that just about every vehicle has no more than four seats across. This is because there is only space for four seats and an aisle between them. But, no, this bus company has decided that more is better and have crammed in five seats across. I accept that if all the passengers were five years old, then this would be a perfectly sensible transportation move. But, the rail passengers were all above 18, which presented me with an interesting time watching them try to fit into the space provided, which was made more exciting as the bus company have given customers no real amount of leg room either. One man looked positively annoyed. I’d add that wasn’t me.
I moved to the back of the bus to get some space, and I’m pleased to say that unlike the Inbetweeners, I wasn’t moved off those seats by anyone. The fortunate thing is that social distancing means that customers are kept apart, so there were only about 12 of us on the vehicle. About 105 seats, but only 12 people sitting on them.
The rail replacement bus arrived into Newbury Park, where we were politely told to get on the Central Line into London. I asked the gateline staff if I was allowed to continue travelling down the Central Line to Oxford Circus, or whether I needed to get off at London Liverpool Street. To cut a long story short, he told me that I should really get off at London Liverpool Street, but that wasn’t what he recommended I should do. He suggested winging it with the gateline staff at Oxford Circus as that would be much quicker. He mentioned though that this was all at my own risk. Indeed, he mentioned that three times.
I worry if I don’t have the right ticket, so I decided not to spend an hour worrying and I got off at London Liverpool Street. That also meant I didn’t have to try and enter into protracted negotiations with the gateline staff at Oxford Circus, which didn’t sound an exciting game to play. I had to faff about finding a member of gateline staff to let me out of London Liverpool underground station, and he looked slightly annoyed to watch me then go back through from where I had come from around thirty seconds later. But, my journey was now fully compliant with railway rules and I didn’t have to fear any TFL ticket inspectors. And more excitingly, I was back in London after way too many months.
