Located on Hatton Wall in London, quite an interesting cartoon painted onto an otherwise uninteresting wall….
Tag: London
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London – Moon Under Water (Leicester Square)
We had several hours to kill before getting a train back to Norwich, so it seemed a sensible idea to get unhealthy amounts of coffee to ensure a wide awake approach to the rest of the day. There were, after all, several more pubs to get to.
The Moon Under Water, which is what George Orwell described a perfect pub as being, has been in this central West End location on Leicester Square since 1992. CAMRA mention that it was formerly a steak club and it’s also the first Wetherspoons which opened in the West End, so it’s done really well to last for thirty years. It’s a long and narrow pub and when we visited it wasn’t easy to find a seat, we got rather fortunate to get a table right near to the back.
Wetherspoons themselves have some history of this pub, noting:
“This famous square was laid out in 1670 by Lord Leicester. The first house on the site of this pub was occupied, in turn, by a Lord Chancellor, two princes and the famous Scottish surgeon John Hunter. ‘Hunter’s House’ was demolished in 1892 and replaced by the present building.”
I found this particularly interesting, as John Hunter was heavily involved in body snatching, a surgeon who didn’t ask any questions about where his bodies came from. His house here on Leicester Square was once used as his personal museum and he had a connected property at the rear of this house which was used as a dissecting house. That property was located on Castle Street, which has since been renamed Charing Cross Road.
A chicken wrap, chips and unlimited coffee was something like £6.59, which given the location really isn’t too bad. The chicken was a little light (I think they’d used one chicken strip instead of two, although I can’t say that I dwelled unnecessarily long over this), but it all tasted perfectly fine and was sufficient. The visit was more about the coffee than expecting any fine cuisine, although this is the first Wetherspoons I’ve seen with only one coffee machine, space is just very limited.
The service was efficient and polite, plates collected promptly and the pub environment was all clean and tidy. I have visited here before on a few occasions, but they were several years ago and I had forgotten the theatre posters which line the corridors to the toilets.
I had a little look at TripAdvisor to amuse myself, and there were some marvellous reviews, such as:
“We ordered chips and they came literally after 2 secs completely cold!!!”
I’d highly doubt it took “literally two seconds” if I’m being honest, but who knows….
Anyway, for those visiting central London and wanting a cheap and affordable option, with real ale and craft beer, there are many worse….
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London – Greggs Stratford
After we’d got off the Megabus from Norwich to London, there was one cultural highlight of London to visit, the Greggs at Stratford Westfield…..
Cakes.
And beautifully presented pastries.
Greggs are giving free Walkers crisps to lots of people who have the Greggs App, which complemented my hot sausage roll beautifully. Friendly service and top quality products, what a quite marvellous way to start a weekend away…..
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Norwich – Megabus to London
We needed to get to Heathrow cheaply and easily, but doing this in the morning is a challenging exercise to do cheaply on the trains. So, Megabus were the perfect option, costing around £7 per ticket to get from Norwich to Stratford in London. I’ve caught this bus many times and it’s a stress-free experience usually, with no need to print the tickets out, just showing the driver the e-mail order.
Boarded first, so had a choice of the seats. Since there was no Donovan (excuse the Inbetweeners reference), we decided to sit at the back like some rebels….. It was a very smooth journey and Nathan’s alcoholic drinks the night before didn’t give him any sickness issues. We arrived into London safely at just before 10:00, having set off at 07:30, so the timing of the journey was good and as expected.
The driving was professional, the bus was clean, the driver was professional and it was just a short walk to the Central Line at London Stratford underground station. All very lovely.
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Shoreditch – Brewdog
Having arrived into London Liverpool railway station, I had no shortage of food and drink options in the Spitalfields and Shoreditch area of the city. I’ve been converted to Brewdog now, after initially taking a slight dislike to them for their corporate practices (which seem to have now been moderated somewhat), so I thought that the ten-minute walk to their Shoreditch location was worth it.
Not particularly busy at 16:00 in the afternoon, although it did get busier later on. Lots of different seating styles, including bar stools, tables and booths. All clean as well, with the surfaces not being sticky, which is an irritating feature of some large pubs.
The Brewdog beer fridge, with choices to take away, or for a premium, drink at the pub.
The beer choice, but my preferred option of Zombie Cake had run out and the only other dark option was an imperial stout and I didn’t want that strong a beer.
Half a pint of Dead Pony Club and a sample of Clockwork Tangerine. There are a lot of hops in the Dead Pony Club, which is fruity and citrusy. Not my preferred type of beer, but full of flavour and very drinkable. Incidentally, I didn’t think that the Clockwork Tangerine had quite the strength of tangerine that I was expecting, but it was also light and drinkable.
The meat feast pizza, which was a slight challenge to eat as the ingredients slid off the base with some ease. But, food should sometimes be messy, so it’s all about the taste. Actually, it’s about the temperature as well, which was very hot and I was a bit too eager to get started so nearly burnt the top of my mouth.
As a pizza, we’ve established it was served at a hot temperature, but the ingredients were decent, the base was light and the sauce rich and flavoursome.
The manufacturers of Dalston chillies say that “there is no junk” in their products and I have to say, I liked it. Quite a powerful little kick without being stupidly hot, so this complemented the pizza well. Although I might have got a bit exuberant with the amount of the sauce I put on one piece of the pizza, which required another emergency drink of beer.
It’s painfully clear from the customers that this is a very on-trend brand and it’s perfectly suited to Shoreditch. There’s a contemporary and modern feel to the whole proceedings, which is also coupled with excellent customer service.
If I could find fault, it’s one of those locations where some of the staff seem to be doing the majority of the work, whilst some of the others were perhaps preening themselves just a little too much. But, all told, the surroundings are comfortable and everything was as I’d like it to be. Other than they needed more darker beer selections.
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London – Puma Court
I walked down this street whilst following the Jack the Ripper Ramblers Route, otherwise I’m not sure that I would have ever found this street.
It’s hard to imagine this quaint street is actually in the heart of Spitalfields. The street was formerly known as Red Lion Court and the Red Lion Court Chapel which was once on the street has long since been demolished.
The text of this tablet reads:
“These almshouses were erected in the year 1860 for poor inhabitants of the liberty of Norton Folgate in place of those taken down for the new street”.
The original almshouses were in Blossom Street, but a road widening was needed there, so compensation and new land was provided to the charity.
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London – Ramblers Routes
I’m off to Luxembourg tomorrow and got the train today to my hotel at Heathrow. Inspired by the Hike Norfolk London trip on Saturday, I decided to follow one of the Ramblers routes which are available to members of the organisation via the national web-site. It’s a handy resource and the walks come with a .gpx file to follow, as well as the route description.
This one is the ‘Jack the Ripper’ walk which is a 3.3 mile walk around the area in which the murders took place. There’s not a great deal to see of the murders, as obviously the areas aren’t what they wanted to preserve, but the walk does visit some of the parts of the city which the murderer and victims would have known.
More of the walk itself in separate posts….
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London (Central) – Kindertransport Statue (The Arrival)
I don’t usually use this entrance into Liverpool Street Station, so have missed just how much of a wonderful statue this is. It’s a commemoration of the 10,000 Jewish children who were able to escape from Nazi Germany just before the outbreak of the Second World War and who arrived at the station.
The statue was designed by Frank Meisler who as a child was evacuated from Gdansk (or what was then the Free City of Danzig) to London Liverpool Street station.
There’s a parallel statue at Gdańsk Główny railway station (above photo which I took in 2016) by the same sculptor.
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London (Central) – Frame Break by Jack West
This sculpture at Spitalfields is entitled Frame Break, and was designed by Jack West and installed here in 1988. Personally I thought it looked confused, but I really like the premise behind it which is that it’s a reference to the Frame Breaking Act of 1812. This was introduced by the Government to increase penalties for those who damaged industrial machinery, mainly people known as Luddites. It became a capital crime to try and deter vandals from destroying equipment and along with other measures the action was generally successful in quelling the growing rebellion.
I think I’d have liked something that looked less like a smashed up guitar and something which more resembled the looms from the period. It’s a really nice concept though, another reminder of the history of the area as it makes reference to the migrant Huguenot weavers who worked and lived in Spitalfields.
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London (Central) – Wooden Boat with Seven People
This interesting artwork in Spitalfields is an actual boat which was used to transport refugees from Turkey to the islands of Greece. It has a wider meaning of showing the suffering, terror and struggle of migrants around the world who have to make such perilous crossings.
The artwork was created in 2011, although it has been in its current site since 2017. It was designed by Kalliopi Lemos, a Greek-born sculptor and painter, who specialises in artworks relating to the politics of forced migration.
Very much a thought-provoking piece and the location in Spitalfields is also deliberate, it’s a reminder of how the area has been welcoming to waves of migrants over the centuries.
