Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Tower Hamlets

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Travelodge Docklands

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Travelodge Docklands

    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…..

     

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Greggs at Canary Wharf

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Greggs at Canary Wharf

    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.

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Ibis Shoreditch

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Ibis Shoreditch

    Back a few weeks to when people could actually visit London, this is the Ibis Hotel in Shoreditch which is just a short walk from London Liverpool Street. Ideally also, it’s opposite Aldgate East Underground station, so it’s an easy hotel to get to.

    This visit was at a time when people could have a drink if they were also ordering a substantial meal. But, although the hotel was offering meals, there wasn’t much of a take-up.

    Part of the hotel’s decor, trying to give that East London theme to proceedings. The whole arrangement felt modern and welcoming, with something of an Ibis Styles type approach to the design rather than Ibis.

    This is the free welcome drink, one of the better ones which I’ve been offered. It’s not the finest in the Brewdog range, but I do very much like Punk IPA, nice and citrusy…. I look forwards to other Ibis hotels offering something slightly more exciting than Budweiser.

    The bedroom, all clean and comfortable. And it was located on the top floor and away from the elevator, just where I like. There were no noise issues either, although I’m not sure that the 348-room hotel was actually that busy. The hotel also had windows that could open, as I’m one of those slightly strange customers who likes the noise of city traffic and police sirens. It also meant that the temperature in the room was easy to control, something which I do most appreciate.

    I did very much appreciate the gesture and that’s a nice handwritten card, although secretly (well, not that secretly actually) I would have preferred chocolate…..

    Anyway, the stay as all sufficiently uneventful, which is ideally how hotel stays should be if it means that no disasters took place. Staff seemed friendly, although slightly underworked through the lack of guests, and I’ll come back here again.

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Bethnal Green Tube Disaster Memorial

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Bethnal Green Tube Disaster Memorial

    This monument, also known as the Stairway to Heaven Memorial, commemorates those who lost their lives in the Bethnal Green Tube disaster of 1943. It’s a striking monument for what was the worst civilian disaster during the Second World War.

    During the late 1930s, the Central Line was being expanded from Liverpool Street over to locations in Essex. The construction work had nearly been completed when the Second World War commenced, but there was no track laid and the site was taken over to be used as war shelters.

    On the evening of the 3 March 1943, there was an air raid warning and many locals proceeded to the station site to find safety. Near to the bottom of the steps down a mother and daughter slipped, which led to people behind falling and then crushing those below. A total of 173 people were killed during the incident, including 62 children, with their names placed on the above panels.

    Clicking on the above photo should make this readable and it’s an account of what happened on that fateful evening. The press weren’t permitted to write about the incident, although the occasional sly mention got through, as there were fears that it might induce a national panic as well as being damaging to the morale of the nation. A report into the incident was commissioned, but wasn’t published by the Government until 1946.

    I think this looks quite sleek and elegant, with the main part of the memorial at the rear being an inverted flight of stairs. The memorial was designed by Harry Paticas, who was also one of the key visionaries behind the entire project. He had noted just a small plaque inside the station marking the event and he wanted something more visible, so that the story wasn’t entirely forgotten.

    These are quotes from survivors and although they’re a little hard to read (both at the memorial and on-line) they add some poignancy to the memorial. A comprehensive web-site was also created alongside the memorial, available at http://stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org/.

    There’s more about the incident on this video, from BBC’s The One Show.