The Mystery of Gas Lane

A few weeks ago my mum mentioned parking up with her late husband in a small street he called Gas Lane,  near to the Mogul Tandoori in Sturton Street (Cambridge)  where they were picking up a takeaway curry. I'd never heard of Gas Lane. I'm familiar with the area, so wondered how I could have missed this small side lane of which she spoke. Of course there could have been confusion regarding the street name but the idea of a small lane which somehow I'd missed despite living in Cambridge most of my life was intriguing. The name 'Gas Lane' conjured up images of miasma-like fog, gas lamps, Victorian Houses and Victorian men wearing top hats and cloaks lurking in the half light. A lost ghost street, existing in parallel with modern Cambridge. Not on google maps- a sort of reverse Argleton. I resolved to explore the area properly on foot and see what I could find.

The vicinity is part of what is known as 'Petersfield', over the other side of  Mill Road Bridge from Romsey Town. I started at the corner of Gwydir Street and Norfolk Street.

Roll On Blank Tapes has been there so long I normally wouldn't take much notice of it. Closed since the turn of the millennium, it is a mystery how the building survives in an area of such preposterously high house prices. When I used to visit to buy blank tapes in my youth the proprietor struck me as a bit of an odd man. He use to  emerge from a back room and seemingly rarely left the premises, although somebody claims to have seen him working in Tescos on Newmarket Road since. There were rumours of the shop being a front for something dodgy - drugs, porn, prostitution. Here on an old 'We're All Neighbours' thread somebody says it was used as a location for video/photo shoots for 'Micropenis' and 'The Redemption'. I haven't been able to verify if this is true or what these videos/photoshoots were for. An quick search for 'Micropenis' on google produced results that were somewhat unsavoury, particularly at breakfast time, which prompted me to abort my researches. My feeling is that any claims of dubious activity are likely to be unfounded.  It's been said elsewhere it was owned by the much respected H Gee on Mill Road, an even more incredible (and still open) throwback to a past retail age selling a mind boggling array of dusty electrical items.

Over the road, the former Prince of Wales has been in residential use for as long as I can remember. The revived ghost sign, which has been that way since at least 2008,  is something I've never noticed before. Just goes to show it's worth looking up (or down or sideways) as well as straight ahead. I'm not sure about reviving ghost signs. I think they should probably be left to slowly fade away in peace.

The old St Matthew's School building above is now also a private residence. Or maybe multiple residencies. There are separate doorways for Boys and Girls as on most school buildings of this era. The notice warning stone throwers that they will be prosecuted seems like something designed to warn against guerrilla attacks by disgruntled schoolchildren, who were no doubt subjected to the horrors of Victorian discipline and the brutality of corporal punishment. But it might just be a twee joke by the new owners.

Just up the road is another building I often pass but have never paid much attention to. Alex Wood Hall is the local Labour Party Headquarters. Cambridge, and particularly Mill Road is more labour than anything else in political terms. But it's over the bridge in Romsey and the site of the Labour Club (now closed and likely to be demolished before turning into Cambridge's next instalment of luxury or student flats) that I associate with the Labour Party in Cambridge. Romsey was known as 'Red Romsey' or 'Little Russia' in the early 20th Century due to being populated by heavily unionised railway workers.  Both my maternal grandads (the blood-related one killed in the war, and the grandad I knew, my mums step dad) hailed from the area and had frequented the Labour Club which their fathers had helped build. I wondered why the Labour Party Headquarters had ended up over the bridge, away from Little Russia. Maybe it symbolised the shift away from real Labour towards New Labour.

Away from politics (which is probably the best direction) a few feet up the road is this display of preserved creatures in someones front room window. I stood and enjoyed looking at them for some time, having previously only glanced at them in passing. I wondered if the house owner was some sort of academic or scientist specialising in the study of these creatures or if collecting them was more of a hobby, rather like a bit like a grown up version of the collection of plastic and rubber insects and dinosaurs I accumulated as a kid. A quick google search later revealed numerous websites sell these dried insects, the most directly named one being deadinsects.net.

I decided I'd been loitering long enough on the fringes of the zone in which Gas Lane might be found and began my search. Above is a parade of shops which runs along one edge of a housing estate which was built on the 60s as one of Cambridge's first slum clearance projects. The pub now known as the Blue Moon, but most well known as The Man on The Moon, was part of this development and looks typical of 60s/70s estate pubs. It was opened in 1969 and the name refers to the space race of the time. A couple of weeks earlier I had noticed the car park that backed onto the shops was due to be demolished. This had already happened on my return.

Behind the car park was a footpath, which I had planned to walk through but access was denied due to the demolition.

So instead I crossed the road and walked down Vicarage Terrace almost directly opposite. This seemed the path of least resistance and would lead to the Mogul Tandoori. This road had been in my minds eye when my mum first mentioned parking in a lane near here, before mentioned the name Gas Lane.

At the top end is the garden of The Parish Church of St Mathews which dates from the Victorian era. This gives way to some more modern housing further along and other more recent developments. This utilities box featured my first sighting of the day of 'Nigel' tags. These pop up frequently around Cambridge seemingly at random. It has the distinction of being a tag that is clearly legible, although the significance of it, or who Nigel is, remains a mystery. Nigel has been around for quite a while,  suggesting a tagger of advancing years. About a year ago I saw the same tag in Berlin at the Humboldthain Flack Tower. Maybe Nigel gets about a bit. Or maybe it's a franchise, with a Nigel in different locations. Or maybe he doesn't exist at all and it's just something replicated by lots of different people in Cambridge and other places.

The signs warning non-residents against parking ranged between the politely threatening 'we may take legal action' to warning of a dangerous encounter with a hairy wheelchair or it's owner. I doubt my mum and her husband would have risked that, even for a curry. This ruled out the street as the 'Gas Lane' to which she had referred.

I'd not heard of The Metropolitan Housing Society before but it appears to have taken over or joined up with Granta Housing, a local housing society set up in the '60s. Private housing in this part of Cambridge is inextricably linked to London with prices to match, being within walking distance of the station and commuting . Plenty of landlords from London rent out gaffs in the area too. So it shouldn't be a surprise that social housing isn't immune to a metropolitan influence as well I suppose.

I emerged from Vicarage Terrace opposite the Moghul Tandoori and the Dobblers Inn. Another thing I'd not noticed before; the Dobblers unusual facade. It looks like they started to build the left side with two floors, then decided against it, the one storey necessitating the taller than normal chimneys. It's not a pub I've visited much, being slightly at the wrong end of the real ale triangle (or maybe Octagon, I haven't mapped it) of pubs off  Mill Road for me. Both in location and propensity for TV football. But it deserves respect for maintaining old school pub activities-pool, darts, pub quiz, etc which are lacking in other establishments in the vicinity. I've only been to the Moghul once in my life too, a long time ago. It's reputation is very good. But that's on the wrong side of the curry triangle. I'm almost certainly being topographically inaccurate with my triangle analogies. But it is very easy to lose track of time and effectively disappear, at least for a while, in one or more of the areas pubs and /or curry houses. They represent an urban Bermuda Triangle without Barry Manillow music and have never to my knowledge appeared on an episode of Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World.

Vicarage Terrace from the pub end..

Round the corner from the Dobblers is Abbey Walk. Much of this is new housing, but built in a similar style to the surrounding Victorian dwellings, if slightly grander looking. There are some older houses round here too, but I was certain this was not Gas Lane as described by my mum or otherwise.

It was here that I saw the second of the days 'Nigels'.

I had a rest on St Matthews Piece overlooked by the Weyman Funeral Home and Strawberry Cottage. On it's Wikimapia page, the Piece is remembered by someone who played their in the 50s when they were at St Matthews School and that 'it sure looks country now, it used to be half paved with swings, climbers etc'. Their are still swings and roundabouts but they seem much tamer than those that would have existed in the concrete age of the 50s. Over the other side of the piece is the building that used to be the Howard Mallet Centre. I used to go there sometimes went I was about 10 years old but memories are vague.  I'm not sure what we really did as members of the 'Howard Mallet Junior Club' except hang about in the tuck shop and on the Piece. There would have been concrete then too, I'm certain. Vague half memories of this time/place are a posh girl from Perse School who dressed a bit like a man and smoked fags, and a kid who looked like Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The same people went to the nearby Carioca Club junior disco which happened in afternoons of school holidays. Beating Augustus Gloop at pool, Ghost Town by the Specials being heavily featured on the disco (a la Father Ted) and prawn cocktail crisps with Worcester sauce are my only clear memories of the place. The internet seems to have largely forgotten it too. The only reference I can find is on Ian Kitching's website.  The club ceased business after burning down in 1986. It was the subject of complaints from nearby residents for some time before that, and attempts to open another nightclub nearby were thwarted by nimbys.  I bet local legend Disco Kenny was a regular visitor to the Carioca but nobody I know seems to remember it.

My mental perambulation into a half remembered past complete, I got up and headed back in the direction I had come, down Geldart Street which runs parallel to Vicarage Terrace. And past the other side of The Parish Church of St Matthew and it's bizarre octagonal tower influenced by Ely Cathedral.

The vicarage is a more modern building and the road generally has a post war feel to it building wise. Clearly this was not or had ever been 'Gas Lane'.

Opposite the church, I was back at the estate with the demolished car park. I'd never walked into the estate before and I was curious.

The flat roofed buildings, colour of the bricks and general layout of straight passages and right angles reminded me a bit of the much newer and more upmarket Accordia development across town on the former Government Offices site. Both had won design awards. But the contrast between the two places was also stark. This area still has the feel of the 70s council estate it was, although some dwellings are being let at rents far from council these days. I've no idea of the demography of the estate now. I didn't see anybody apart from a brief glimpse of a man with a bull terrier type dog. It felt like I had gone back in time to the estates I used to play in/walk home from school through. It seems incredible that it could still exist so close to the centre of contemporary Cambridge.  The names of the streets/walkways are largely Gaelic sounding - Donnegal, Farran, Inveran and , er, Enfield. No Richard Rogers Way around here.  This was somewhere from the past while Accordia represented a possible future (although not that possible, unless you are loaded).

The recent(ish-2004) Crown Court building on East Road looms up beyond the tree in the picture in a slightly menacing way. Further down are four storey blocks of maisonettes and flats that would have been high rise for Cambridge in the 70s.  The view through this walkway shows the former BHS on the end of the Grafton Centre shopping centre over the other side of East Road. An 80s development built after 'slum' housing was cleared in the area known as the Kite. At the time I can vaguely remember the campaign to 'Save the Kite' on local TV and am convinced their was a World In Action programme about it. But this may be a false memory, I can't find any reference to it anywhere.

There seemed to be several notices saying 'No' to something or other- No Flytipping, no cycling. And no leaving it for someone else to clear up. What beast(s) the 'it' was expelled from is not clearly stated but judging by the magnitude of the deposit probably ones that are dangerous and to be feared.

The notices didn't make clear the penalties for any breach but this door looked ominous. Although attached to a car park under the flats, I couldn't rule out a secret route to the cells of the Crown Court..or worse.

What was behind this smaller blocked opening? The lair of the beast producing the unsavoury emissions depicted in the 'bag it, bin it's poster? Or a cell for those serially disobeying the commands of the numerous public notices? I left the estate without finding the answer..or Gas Lane.

The other side of St Matthews Street I decided to head down New Street. The 'Cambridge Utd' referred to on the sticker below seemed unlikely to be the football team judging by the St Georges flag. Ominous.

The other side of the road was a new bit of Anglia Ruskin University which appeared a bit wibbly. This extends along the road while opposite is what is left of the light industry buildings that used run along the road, some (or possibly all) of which belong to Mackays, a large hardware/ tool/engineering trade shop.

I was curious as to why 'this gate will not fully open' when '24 hour access' was required. And what was behind it.

Pedestrians were clearly discouraged from trying to find out less they risk being eliminated between midriff and back of right knee.

I risked a peak through the gate. The reception up the stairs at the back of the yard had the air of being somewhere you had to be in the know to get in, like a gambling den or an afternoon drinking club. The sort of place you'd get on an episode of the 80s TV series Minder.

Nigel made another appearance-larger this time and in a different font. And underneath an oblong of white painted brickwork that remained unexplained.

A little further along some of Mackay's wares were being advertised. BOC supply a mind boggling array of industrial gases, food preservation products, foam blowing agents(?) and the like. I have no idea what most of these products are or do with the exception of dry ice.

The blue building below was once the Rodney Brewery Tap . The sign makes reference to E Lacon & Co Limited. Lacon's Brewery (based in Yarmouth) seemingly bought Rodney Brewery's pubs. Lacon's Brewery were still around in the 60s. A bloke I used to get the bus to work with telling me of the boozy weekends of his youth, recalled avoiding one particular pub due to it being a Lacon's house and their beer being 'terrible'. Lacons weren't around by the time I was old enough to go to the pub but have in recent time re-emerged. I've not tried the beer but by all accounts it's good. About the Rodney Brewery I can find little else. It gets a brief mention in the undoubtedly essential 1916 publication the Gravels of East Anglia. But that's about it . The Brewery History Website says it is now a house, but it looked more likely to either be part of Mackays or the CATS College which has a small building next to it. CATS College is a sort of Sixth Form/access college for overseas students hoping to get into Cambridge University. Opposite this building is new student accommodation in the standard bland style (let's call it beige) that the people of Cambridge have come to expect from developers as more and more of it gets built.

Also opposite is the building that used to be the aforementioned Howard Mallet Centre. I don't recall the building being so 'glassy' when I was a kid but I'm pretty sure it's not been demolished and rebuilt. It was always a community centre, and has gone through several incarnations.  The land was 'given to residents in perpetuity for rest and recreation'. But it was sold to developers. The building was due to be demolished and looks different in this publicity from the developers  Chard Robinson. They were due to lease the building to the local Bodyworks dance school but it seems they changed their minds and instead let it to the Cambridge Education Group who use it as premises for their Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts. The same group own the aforementioned CATS College and the students will presumably be from similar backgrounds (from rich overseas families). At some point in the recent past the building was renamed Citylife House, just as links with the city and it's life and community were seemingly about to be severed.

On the opposite site of the road in front of yet more monotonous 'beige' development, I was struck by the juxtaposition of the four black and white seriously concerned faces in the anti-brexit poster, and somebody dancing around with colourful broccoli apparently without a care in the world. Opposite a former community centre now teaching dance (possibly including the use of broccoli) and is now a lot less, if at all, accessible to residents.

I diverted down Abbey Street towards Newmarket Road, where what was the Five Bells pub still stands. There are several ex light industry buildings on Abbey Street in various states of emptiness/dereliction.  The Five Bells has been shut for several years but it could be due to re-open. My only visit was on a pub crawl about 25 years ago on a Friday afternoon. I remember it as being a slightly unfriendly and possibly dodgy pub with about three middle aged men in it. They tolerated us while we stayed for a pint and played pool but the atmosphere was distinctly uncomfortable. Later it became a gay pub and lasted a few years before it closed. I have a vague memory of my Dad stopping the car outside when I was a kid and going in to see someone. My memory tells me he was renewing a fishing permit or something but I can't think how the pub was connected to fishing..

Past the bus stop are a two or three shops. One is currently a pine furniture shop which has a sideline in model taxis and vespas.

On the corner of Newmarket Road/East Road at the edge of the Elizabeth Way roundabout, is the former Rose and Crown. The original rose and crown symbols on the wall, joined by the Greene King motif and latterly the Cambridge Property Lettings sign, made the building look like the headquarters of some sort of mystic society. I'd always assumed 'Rose and Crown' referred to the Rosicrucians. I'd read something about them years ago but couldn't remember the details. The Rosicrucian Order of AMORC  say they are 'a community of mystics who study and practise the metaphysical laws governing the universe'. The wiki page lists a plethora of 'orders' linked to Rosicrucianism including the Golden Dawn and there are links to Freemasonry. However, I was wrong about my assumptions. The Rose and Crown pub name/symbols are to do with the War of the Roses when Henry Tudor united the Red Rose of Lancaster with the White Rose of York by marrying Elizabeth. This explains the absence of any 'Rose and Crown's in Scotland. More immediately the symbols on this Rose and Crown  seem to represent the focus of the building shifting away from beer and community, towards property, money and exclusivity.

A bit further into East Road there is a development of student flats. This has been here a while. I'd always assumed it was for Anglia Ruskin Students with the main University building being up the road. But a plaque on the building showed at least part of it was being used by CATS college.  Another part of the building was currently empty and up for let.  Maybe people are put off by the wallpaper. 

Next door is Ace Motor Sales which looks very reminiscent of Arthur Daley's car lot in Minder. The older, undeveloped bits of this area in general reminds me of the locations in the TV programme, which always fascinated me as much as the dodgy characters it featured. The reception mentioned earlier was roughly behind the car lot from this angle.

A little dodgy, maybe?

Next door is the front entrance to Mackays. I was invited to take a selfie with Dickie Mackay. He looked a bit creepy to me and I declined the offer.

As well as Ronseal, stanley knives and BOC industrial products (some possibly highly flammable), fireworks are available all year round.

Next door was the other end of the passage I'd passed on New Street. With the same ominous anti-pedestrian sign. The 'pedestrian' reminiscent of  'the incredible shrinking man'. This was close to the County Court.

And this door which presumably is the criminals entrance.

I headed into the underpass to the underneath of Elizabeth Way roundabout. Cambridge doesn't have a lot of 60s concrete underpasses, but the roundabout has four leading into it.

The theme of the unofficial street art was somewhat skeletal.

The official street art consists of murals dating from around 2000 in each of the four underpasses. Apparently they depict various Cambridge subjects associated with the direction of the road each underpass leads to. The one below appears to represent the River Cam.

Unofficial street art wasn't all skeletons. This, I think, resembles a ghostly Mr Greedy wearing a jetpack. Which is sort of beautiful I suppose.

Then there was carrot woman.

Under the roundabout is a space where people on bikes and people on foot can rub along (in the most part) nicely, while then traffic circles overhead. I stopped and sat down for a while. I'd never really hung about here for long before and appreciated it as a public space.

Unofficial and official skeletons (above and below).

I took the underpass out onto the other side of Newmarket Road. The mural here shows Stourbridge Fair. Stourbridge Common is about a mile away between the river and Newmarket Road in this direction. The last fair was in 1933, after an 800 year history having begun in order to raise money for Lepers at the nearby Leper Chapel. Recently the fair was revived and I visited it a couple of years ago. I'd always imagined the original Fair as somewhere rawkus and unruly with drinking, music and probably bear baiting or cock fighting. The new version is considerably twee-er than that. The Luton Town fans passing on their way to the Abbey Stadium opposite were the only vaguely ribald element. The Leper Chapel was open for inspection and tea and cake though, so I wasn't complaining.

Through the other side of the underpass the unofficial street art returns.

A bit up Newmarket Road is the Cambridge Oddfellows District Office. I'd  often wondered what exactly the Oddfellows were, assuming they were some sort of poor relation to the Masons. They are indeed a fraternal society along the lines of the Masons according to Wikipedia although the explanation in the window doesn't sound quite as mysterious.

Across the road, an example of the new development that is growing up along the road next to the old 60s building housing Cambridge Refrigeration Technology. Belvisi is a posh furniture shop. There are flats above known as 'Evening Court'. 

Back on my side of the road I noticed a yard and house with what appeared to be an explanatory plaque of some kind. The wording claims 'between 1963 and 2009 here in this yard Don Casey invented, made and launched many objects used for solving small and world problems'. Notably the 'Filchie Clip', which the plaque says gives choice and independence in individual personal lives. The Filshie Clip (correct spelling) is a device used in female sterilisation co-invented by Don Casey. I suppose the wording on the suspiciously new looking plaque sort of alludes to this but why the crypticsim? Maybe because the house  appears to have been split into holiday rental apartments, catering to those fairly well off judging by the prices, and the pedantic judging by the reviews '...everything we could possibly think of (except a bread knife)'. Nobody seems to have pointed out the incorrect spelling of Filshie Clip though.

The carving below is from the Church of St Andrew the Less, also known as Abbey Church. The figure struck me as somewhat moody while also decrepit but strangely mesmerising. And looking not unlike Lee Van Cleef in 'The Good, the Bad and The Ugly'. The church is now locked most of the time but in occasional use. It was originally provided by the excellently named second sheriff of Cambridge, Pagan Peveral, who had been given the Barnwell area by King Henry in the eleventh century and presumably would have had involvement in the Stourbridge Fair. The Church, although not immediately striking, is one of the more interesting features along this stretch of road, which is threatening to become increasingly banal each time a new build goes up.

Just up from the church I passed the unassuming looking Cambridge Seminar College. This appears to be another sixth form crammer college aiming for the overseas market judging by the website. It's housed in a building of similar vintage to the Refrigeration Company, called 'Logic House'. The sign outside makes reference to 'Veritas' which means the Truth. But the word was also the name of the short lived UKIP splitter political party led by Robert Kilroy Silk. Kilroy Silk started his career as a university lecturer in the 60s and 70s and he seems to have disappeared since the fiasco-ous and much lampooned 'Share or Shaft' quiz show he did. Surely they wouldn't employ him here?

s

The sign over the road on a new block of flats (sorry, apartments) that are verging on the beige style, declares 'Let us be all we can be.' This had a sort of Orwellian oppressive feel mixed with the sort of fake optimism beloved of housing development advertising. The name of the development, Beacon Rise, seems to indicate light rising from the darkness..nobody passing seemed to notice or be impressed.

Across the street was barren plot that has been acquired, what was there previously already forgotten (at least by me) and ready to rise up as the next beacon of cardboardy looking flats/retail opportunities. A little further along Coopers furniture shop is a relic from an earlier age with it's blue mosaic-like tiled background underneath the name. Facing off the Travelodge across the road, making a final stand.

Next door West Garage has gone and Watkin Jones promise to be building the future in it's place. I imagine this is likely to be contemporary student flats I  rather than some sort of exciting futuristic construction. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Over the road there used to be a very unusual dark glass building housing offices of some sort. A friend had worked there, saying in was insufferable in summer. Nobody was that sorry to see it go but whether it's replacement is an improvement is debatable. The Premier Inn does, at least, do breakfast-despite it's beige appearance. 'It's crunch time' declares the billboard next to it..and for the likes of Coopers, Wests and the Minder-esque area around Mackays it certainly seems to be.

The mock-Tudor Corner House Pub is another Greene King establishment. They haven't sold this one to be turned into an estate agent or residential development. It operates as a much needed no nonsense no frills live music venue.

In the tattoo shop window a few doors down, in the window display Zoltar speaks. The future of the area is a bit too predictable to require a fortune teller. He's onto an easy gig here.

Another Greene King public house, the Seven Stars, was soon to re-open having been shut for a few years. Previously it was bikers pub and before that, one frequented by people like my mum. That was until some sort of dispute with the landlord about the money paid for a pub outing. I forget the details. Not a place that was ever really on my radar in my youth, I did once stumble in once on a pub crawl towards the other side of the river and it was full of drunk 50 year old women doing karaoke. In 2014 the pub, then closed but still used for living accommodation, suffered a fire, and three people were arrested for arson.I don't know if that was before any planning permission for development had been granted..

The facade has been kept but the building behind it has grown a low rise block of flats. This seems to be a compromise that has been done elsewhere in the city at the Royal Standard and suggested for other developments on closed pub sites. The pub gets saved, albeit usually smaller than before. Developers get to build and sell or lease dwellings. New residents get to live above a pub. And probably complain about the noise from below and get it closed. I'm pretty sure that would be Zoltar's view on the matter anyway, only time will tell.

I had gone totally off track from the the area and thinking about where Gas Lane might be found. It had almost certainly gone by the time my mum said she had parked there. I couldn't find it on a map. Later I had searched and found a reference on Ian Kitchings website  that mentions it being off St Matthews Street. John Grafton had made gas for street lighting from a building in Gas Lane. His operations later moved to Riverside. Gas production stopped in 1969 and Nort Sea Gas was used  instead as being safer due to the number of student suicides. On the site previously occupied by the largest gas holder in East Anglia there is now a large Tesco.  Behind it is the old pumping station which now houses the Cambridge  Museum of Technology.

Contemporaneous with the gas holder would have been Edward Durrant's Fish and Chip Shop. Now Mr Chippy and complete with a mural that faces the retail park across the street and offers it pizza.

Next door Motorhome Hire offers some of the last affordable accommodation in Cambridge.

My walk came to a natural end about here, opposite the large retail park. I had reached the end of battery life on my camera and the Wresters pub. The mystery of Gas Lane mostly unsolved for now at least, but other things previously unknown and unnoticed had been revealed.

Not really The Dollis Valley Green Walk

I'd had a vague idea of following the Dollis Brook for a while, and few months ago I thought I'd do a section along it's 'greenwalk' whilst killing time prior to a concert in the evening. Just a shortish walk, nothing epic. So this post recounts events from the Autumn as remembered 6 months later. I had last been in Finchley about 25 years ago when I lived there when I was a student at the Polytechnic (later University) of North London. Back then I wasn't even aware of the Dollis Brook or that it flowed through Finchley very near to where I had lived. I'd never explored the area very much at the time. Cursing the young Mr H's lack of perambulatory curiosity, I felt a need to revisit the area. I wanted to find the viaduct in nearby Mill Hill too.

Rather than catch the tube straight to Finchley Central I took the opportunity to have a preliminary drift between Kings Cross and Camden. It was just before midday so I had a good seven hours spare time. The development around Kings Cross has been relentless in the last few years but pockets of resistance and dissent still exist.

Up the road at Euston Station the forthcoming HS2 (High Speed 2) development is destined to have an even bigger and more negative local impact than that at Kings Cross. Residents will be displaced. Relocation is promised nearby but whether this will happen remains to be seen. The excellent Bel Poori restaurants of Drummond Street are under threat. Graves are being exhumed in a public garden destined to disappear and be buried itself under one of the new entrances.

Meanwhile, carrying on towards Somers Town I wasn't sure if this tailor had abandoned the premises or had barricaded him/herself inside.

At number 145 it looked like JR Pottery had discarded the kiln in order to supply emergency blankets. 

Not long after this I got to Camden and caught the tube to Finchley Central. I walked up the main drag, Ballards Lane, taking a diversion into Victoria Park to try and find a convenience. There was one but it was locked. I left the park being too distracted by natures call to explore it properly. I'd never been there when I lived in the area.

Back on the main road I was drawn into a side passage known as Lovers Walk. No sign of anything amorous occurring but maybe that only happens at night. It looked to be in the right direction for the Dollis Brook and there was a possibility of finding somewhere to have a pee.

Lovers Walk

I emerged onto a residential street. A bit further down it I followed the sign pointing down a pathway which was a continuation of Lovers Walk. I guessed this would lead me to the Dollis Brook. But by this point I'd decided I'd drift in whatever direction took my fancy, and if I found the  Brook it would be fortuitous but not longer essential.

Soon I did reach the brook and followed it along until taking a diversion past the Fursby Allotments: 'Best Kept Small Allotment in Barnet 2015'. A worthy accolade, but it was now 2016. Where was the  currently title holder I wondered? Maybe a future walk tracking the allotments of Barnet would be a good excuse to come back another day. As far as I am concerned allotments are magical spaces and in more ways than one. Anyone who has one will probably tell you that upon entering an allotment site you are instantly in a different place physically and mentally. Any stress and anxiety seems to dissipate as you pass through the gate as if you have entered parallel dimension of calm and equilibrium. They are also miraculous in their continued existence given the pressure from developers and land grabbers. But many have been lost including one recently in nearby(ish) Watford. They represent a healthy 'up yours' to the idea of  relentless property speculation as the best use of land...maybe that's another reason it feels good to have an allotment. The resurgence of interest in them among all sorts of people in recent years has been important in helping reduce their loss. It has also meant that they are no longer only inhabited by the stereotypical easy going old men in flat caps, although gladly they are still about to offer their wisdom. 

My memory of events here feels somewhat unreliable - there is a bit of a gap in the photographic record and a cheating look at google maps hasn't helped me really. So I will write as I remember. This might lead to an account not quite on par the reality of the route taken but the one that is in my brain a few months after the event. And therefore a more pure if distorted version of events. I emerged into a green space following the Dollis. This was clearly a popular place to bring children and walk dogs. Not really wanting to be surrounded by either I diverted down a side way leading to a road..possibly the one I had crossed earlier.

I had it in mind that this road would lead to Mill Hill East tube station. I passed a crossroads with a handful shops and a couple of busy cafes. I half recognised this from my Uni days of 25 years ago. The scene sparked a vague memory of trying to walk to Mill Hill East back then and never reaching it. I remembered these shops but never finding the tube station. Again when I got to this place I initially thought I might be at Mill Hill East. It wasn't of course and I carried along the road. Looking at the map now this was probably Lullington Garth but I'm not 100% sure.

Carrying on I soon found myself in what was beginning to resemble countryside. I found a stile into a field and felt compelled to climb over it. There were several mushroom rings in the field, this being Autumn. In European and British Folklore these 'fairy rings' are usually considered dangerous if entered. One legend has it that  'someone who violates a fairy perimeter becomes invisible to mortals outside and may find it impossible to leave the circle. Often, the fairies force the mortal to dance to the point of exhaustion, death, or madness'. While the idea of becoming invisible is quite appealing when doing a walk, I was never much of a dancer to being with. I skirted round the rings just to be on the safe side.

Invisible dancefloor of death

In the distance I could see what thought was the Lloyds Bank buidling in Cockfosters. The tentacles of world finance are never far away even when dodging fairy rings in a field in Barnet. On an earlier walk I did with R, our destination had been East Barnet but we saw the looming white building in the distance and decided carry on until we reached it. It seemed like a beacon in the suburban hilliness of Barnet. It was less palatial and impressive close up than from a distance but still the dominant feature in the immediate environs of Cockfosters Tube. One which seemed to mock our vain efforts to find liquid refreshment at the end of our journey (we couldn't find a pub near the station).

I noticed some of the trees appeared petrified. Maybe they were cursed..by fairies or bankers. Or maybe dead. Or maybe they were supposed to look like that, I'm not much of an authority on trees.

Across the field I climbed another stile and entered what looked like a farmyard. I saw people with children on horses. I followed the footpath signs across another field and into a paddock. This contained a couple of large horses and no apparent way out the other side. Retreating from the paddock,  I retraced my steps as no other obvious pathway presented itself. I have a sort of unwritten rule never to double back on a walk unless there are exceptional circumstances. But horses can be dangerous and I'm a coward. This was an exceptional circumstance.

Back on the main road, I soon saw that the reason for the proliferation of all things horsey was the Frith Manor Equestrian Centre'. A bit further up the road I passed this mysterious obelisk.

Passing Finchely Golf Club I suddenly recalled this road from my attempt to walk to Mill Hill East in my student days. I remember at the time this being a seemingly endless road with trees and fields with an army base or shooting range and possibly a farm  My vague memory was at least part right. Inglis Barracks used to exist nearby but the site has since been given over to a fairly typical looking residential development only remarkable by it's non-remarkableness. Millbrook Park was a result of something called Project MoDel which basically involved the Ministry of Defence divesting itself of sites considered surplus by selling to housing developers. I guess houses are better than war.

It seems even manhole covers have to be called something. I came across this one labelled 'Warrior'. Other names for manhole covers include 'Saunders', 'Aptlas Double' and 'Bulleseye' although these ones are more subtle and dignified, not feeling the need to display their brand to the public. Those who need to identify and deal with the various Thames Water manhole covers safely have this booklet to refer to. These field officers hold the key to an unseen world of underground byways through these portals. Maybe they know the secret of the names given to the covers. But to me they remain as random sounding and unexplained as those given to different models of glasses in Specsavers.

Warrior

Eventually I arrived at a crossroads with some shops and soon after rejoined the Dollis Brook (I think.I didn't bother to check the map).

Probably not an official warning sign

Then I emerged into some streets and followed a footpath to Dollis Avenue.

Somewhere soon after this I passed through a small secluded churchyard  featuring an unusual urn type monument, possibly a grave, at it's centre. Symbolism in graveyards is something I ought to lean more about. According to the Graveyards of Scotland blog, 'An urn is the epitome of elegance, class and style and had soon replaced the skull and crossbones on many graveyards in Scotland and the world'. Not being one to care much for elegance, class and style I think that's something of a shame.

Rested I carried on. Soon I realised I was back not far from where I'd began at Finchley Central.

Rather than head back to Ballards Lane I took a pathway which ended at the entrance to Stephens House and Gardens, a place I'd never heard of. This contained a memorial to the comedian Spike Milligan who had lived in the area and been involved in the Finchley Society.

The statue is called 'a conversation with Spike' and you are encouraged to engage in one and while taking in the various elements of the bench. These include elephant heads, statues of characters from the Goon Show and fairies. Spike apparently had a fascination with fairies and convinced his children they lived at the bottom of his garden. Hopefully they didn't fall foul of the mushroom rings. I did sit for a few minutes and wondered what bizarre anecdotes he'd be able to tell me about the environs and characters of Finchley in the early 70s. I'm sure he had plenty but he remained silent.

Also in the gardens is 'the Bothy'. A Victorian folly under renovation. One of the first non-Roman concrete structures in Britain. I'd never really associated the Victorians with concrete but the view of one of its towers from outside the garden had a definite proto-brutalist feel to it.

Heading South, away from Finchley, I passed this green in what was otherwise quite a built up area on Regents Park Road. I was surprised to see cows in this setting but they were defiantly there.

Over the road this building featuring  'danger of death' dates from the days of Finchley Borough Council. This organisation disbanded in 1965 when the Borough of Barnet and swallowed up Finchley. I wondered what the faded white rectangle symbols represented. Had always only been an electricity room or had Finchley Borough Councillors had utilised it for other purposes.

After crossing the North Circular Road I realigned with the Greenwalk for a bit in the direction of Hampstead. Hampstead was my destination for the evening so I wanted to avoid going there for now.  I thought I might be able to skirt round it's edges and head towards Kentish Town to obtain liquid refreshment for the concert later. I had been advised there would be an interval and to 'bring what you like to drink'. I planned to visit the Clapton Craft beer shop to obtain supplies and visit the excellent Pineapple Pub for a relaxing post walk pint before heading to Hampstead, by bus or train.

I was soon in Little Wood nature reserve..another place I had no idea existed. I'm not sure if I passed through Big Wood. I've since learned Little Wood contains an open air theatre, still in use. I missed that but did stumble upon evidence of  premature Halloween shenanigans -it was October 22nd, not the 31st.

Possibly the people of Hampstead Garden Suburb consider their Winter Fair of greater significance and Halloween is pushed back a week. I misread the notice below at the time. I thought it implied visiting the event would reduce stress which seemed a bit of a bold claim. It turns out Combat Stress is a charity for helping war veterans with post traumatic stress disorder and other stress related afflictions. 

This bizarre letter box was on  the wall surrounding a particularly big house, even for round these parts. The Lion is a symbol of 'strength, courage and majesty' used since Roman times and is  a popular design for door knockers in the UK. The letter box reminded  me of the Green Man or foliate head carvings found /in churches as much as a Lion.

Eventually I was out of Hampstead Garden Suburb and heading towards Swiss Cottage. I don't recall much of the walk between the two except that by this point I was beginning to regret wearing new boots. I had only planned a shortish walk but I hadn't turned out that way and my feet were beginning to feel it. I passed this ghost sign for an optician on the main street having left the foliate suburb to pass into a more down to earth albeit less leafy area.

I'd not anticipated passing through Swiss Cottage. I was an area I'd only ever really passed through by bus in the past. I often wondered what the Swiss Cottage building was that I could see from the top deck. I was happy to find it was a pub belonging to Sam Smith's Brewery- Ye Olde Swiss Cottage. Several years ago a friend suggested trying to visit all the Sam Smith's pubs in London over the course of a few visits. There are quite a number of them. We somehow never go round to that but someone else has done and also produced a map. It may or may not be complete and up to date..maybe a Sam Smiths walk is needed to find out...

At Swiss Cottage tube station it was nice to see that beverages were not being provided by the usual suspects. The Star Box Coffee stand, painted telephone/postbox red, seemed defiant to the blandification and homogenaity usually found.

From Swiss Cottage I headed towards Camden and Kentish Town. I passed this high rise in a street mainly made up of older houses. Having never been inside a high rise flat I wondered what it would be like..the higher floors of these flats must afford spectacular views across London, in the direction of Primrose Hill and Regents Park. I don't know the demographic of this particular block but, although this block is not quite Belfeon Tower or Trellick Tower and probably not a target for the National Trust, I would guess the story is (or will be) similar.  One of the original people it was built to house being displaced by those with more money.

After a while I found myself on Prince of Wales Road heading into Kentish Town. This vaguely familiar territory for me. The Polytechnic/University of North London had a building there..an ex school I think. This was a bit out of the way of the rest of the Poly/University based mostly in buildings on or near Holloway Road and I only went there about three times. Probably the most famous Alumni of the Poly is Jeremy Corbyn who left/got thrown out after several disagreements with his tutors before finishing his course. There was quite a bit of left wing student politics going on when I was there, so maybe he left his mark. The only other famous alumni I can think of were the band Lush who had left just before I arrived in 1991. It had been turned into flats by the time I next returned to the area just after the turn of the millennium, when I stayed in a B&B over the road. I'd picked Michael's guest house from the Yellow Pages. Can hotel booking really have not existed then? It is now called Camden B&B and it looks a lot smarter - if not a little odd-from the outside, painted white with coloured stripes.

I had not bargained on encountering the Drinkers Paradise shop. Here I stocked up on a couple of beverages for later. I was attracted by the display of decent beer in the window. The Fosters lager logo and 0171 number, displayed on the old sign,  would have been contemporary of  my time at the Poly.  The old and new signs seemed to represent both an increase in the availability of decent beer (hooray!) and rampant gentrification (boo!) that has happened since the era of the 0171 number - I suppose I have to grudgingly accept that the former is a symptom of the latter. 

As I'd reached Kentish Town with plenty of time. I headed to the aforementioned Pineapple for a pint and to rest my feet which were now feeling it, mostly because of my poor footwear choice. Following the side street off the main drag of Kentish Town brought me to the stark contrast of the quiet road of smartly and brightly decorated houses on which the pub is located. I found a quite corner and escaped from the world for a while.

I had intended to get a train from Kentish Town West but that seemed in the wrong direction, and I decided to walk towards Hampstead. This part of the walk was not that eventful..I was weary and was looking out for a bus to take me to Hampstead. I made it to Gospel Oak after passing through this tunnel and the dolls shop below. I'd been past the dolls shop before and had assumed it was closed up. The bizarre objects in the window looked like it had been abandoned years ago and were covered in dust. It was reminiscent of a combination of the shop from the children's TV programme Bagpuss and The Victor Wynd Museum of Curiosities. On that occasion it was Sunday but this time it was very much opened for business, although the cage was kept up on the window. I've since discovered a couple of short films about the shop and it's eccentic octogenarian owner, Kristin Baybars. 'The Little Shop in Gospel Oak' and this one from the London Film School show what I missed  by not going in.  'We do not exist, but of you think we do please knock' reads a sign on the door. I wish I had.

No sign of Professor Yaffle

I caught the overground train at Gospel Oak, a feeble one stop to Hampstead but I was knackered. I was a bit early so visited the White Horse pub. I remembered the name as a place that used to put on gigs back in the day by bands like Silverfish. There was no trace of anything as energentic and rawkus as that happening here now. I headed up to the Rosalyn Hill Chapel to the concert, and treated myself to a posh pork pie to go with by beer at the interval, from a posh deli/butcher shop nearby before going in.

28 days later...

The Dollis Brook Greenwalk would have to be done properly another day. Possibly.