London Christmas Lights Walk

You can’t have it all your own way. Wednesday evening I joined the end of a very long queue outside St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield that stretched all the way down Cloth Fair, hoping to see the Dickens Christmas Carol performance. A nice lady told us that around 150 people were queuing for just two seats and it might be best to give up rather than wait in the rain.
However, on Sunday I did a fantastic walk with my sister exploring the Central London Christmas lights. We started at the Tudor Middle Temple Hall with its wonderful display of Christmas trees outside the 16th century hall, which I think is the most Christmassy place in the whole of London. And there wasn’t a soul around. We strolled past Temple Church with its solitary tree then moved on to Somerset House Ice Rink with the whole scene looking quite majestic and vaguely 19th Century Imperial. We stood on the piazza at Aldwych and admired the lights of the Strand, before heading up to the beautiful chaos of Covent Garden where street performers terrified children beneath enormous decorative bells. Seven Dials was a suspended flying carpet of illuminations.

London Christmas Lights at Middle Temple Hall
London Christmas Lights at Seven Dials in Covent Garden

Henry Pordes bookshop in Charing Cross Road won the award for charm over bombast. Leicester Square was surprising beguiling, Regent Street St James’s had a subtle enchantment. We marvelled at the incredible display at Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly and were intoxicated by the gated glimpse of Burlington Arcade and Piccadilly Arcade. The final leg of our Christmas Lights tour took us along Old Bond Street where Cartier wowed the crowds, New Bond Street with Dior. We had to take a rest in the Masons Arms where a couple of pints reset our concept of reality. Finally we did the classics – Regent Street, and ending appropriately on Oxford Street.

Autumn Walk on the Capital Ring

Walk 3 – Crystal Palace to Beckenham Place Park

About twenty years ago I collected the whole set of free Capital Ring leaflets from Thornhill Square Library in Islington. We used to go there for the ‘Stay and Play’ sessions in the basement and to use the Children’s Library. But as these things often transpire I didn’t actually use the maps until early March 2020 when I walked from Richmond Bridge to Horsenden Hill (Walks 7, 8 and part of 9). It was a great walk. I didn’t go back onto the Capital Ring until February 2023 when I did the glorious stroll from Crystal Palace to Streatham Common (Walk 4). So the other Sunday, with a light rain moistening the golden leaf-fall, seemed like the perfect time to make a run to London’s inner orbital walking trail.

Autumn trees in Beckenham on the Capital Ring

The Capital Ring is the kid sibling of the London Loop – 78 miles compared to the Loop’s 150 miles divided into 15 sections rather than 24. And a key point is that they’re much closer to Central London making each section much more accessible. The season seemed to beckon me back to Crystal Palace but to walk in the opposite direction towards Grove Park (Walk 3). With the leaflet as my guide I circuited Crystal Palace Park, paid homage to the dinosaurs before heading out along Penge High Street. I could barely have chosen a more perfect suburban autumn perambulation as the route drew me across Alexandra Park, down Old Farm Lane, traversing Cator Park where the Chaffinch Brook and the River Beck flow, before I ended my Capital Ring excursion on the heights of Beckenham Place Park with its grand manor house and views out over Kent and Surrey.

Beckenham Place Park - Capital Ring

How long will it be before I return to the Capital Ring, I have no idea. I still have a short section of the London Loop to complete, but there’s no hurry. The Thornhill Square leaflets on top of my bookshelf aren’t going anywhere and will wait patiently till I’m stuck for an idea for a walk and remember they’re up there looking down at me.

Looking for the Lost Rivers of Roman London

This London walk takes us to the City of London looking for the lost rivers and streams of Roman London on the western edge of the old Roman City. A number of channels were excavated at 7-10 Old Bailey that indicated this area was a major tributary valley of the River Fleet. Our Roman London walk starts at the top of Ludgate Hill near St Paul’s Cathedral then turns into Old Bailey, from here we go across Limeburner Lane into Old Seacoal Lane and along Farringdon Street. We turn into Bear Alley and then return to follow the course of the tributary back to its source just to the north of Newgate Street. From Greyfriars Churchyard we then follow the ‘western stream’ down across Paternoster Square to its confluence with the Thames near Puddle Dock.
Source: London Archaeologist Summer 2014

Map of the western stream in the City of London
Map of the western stream in the City of London
Looking down to Farringdon Road
Farringdon Road / River Fleet

Final night of The George, Wanstead

Closing time for this popular local pub

Last night at midnight, Sunday 13th October, Time was called for the final time at The George, Wanstead, as a Wetherspoons pub. There was a sense of occasion from the time we arrived at 10pm. It was packed and stayed that way til midnight when drinks were no longer served. The George Orwell portrait went missing at some point. I wondered what would happen to the maps and paintings of Wanstead Park with the local history information. I ended many a Wanstead Park stroll in the George. And although the pub will re-open under new ownership it will be as part of a more upmarket chain which will price out many of the regulars who had a second home at The George, particularly the older people who could sit there for a few hours with unlimited tea refills for a pound, or enjoy a cheap meal. Wetherspoons get a lot of stick (mainly for their owner’s support for Brexit) but their pubs provide a valuable community resource which will be sorely missed in Wanstead. It felt like a true end of an era. And good luck getting a pint at midnight on a Sunday in Wanstead now.

The George Wanstead 13th October 2024
The George Wanstead 13th October 2024
The George Wanstead 13th October 2024
Site of the missing George Orwell portrait


Here’s some background on the pubs closure as a Spoons and it’s future as the George and Dragon

Discover London: 35 Questions About Its Pubs, Architecture, and Rich History

Here are the questions I covered in this YouTube Q&A video about London walks:

  • walk series that takes in locations that were used for album covers
  • time travel and be able to witness any year in London’s history
  • how about “Market London”?
  • favourite beers
  • buildings I’d remove
  • collab with Joolz? Tweedy? Geoff Marshall etc?
  • if Russell Brand got back in touch with you
  • favourite pub in Walthamstow
  • Nick Papadimitriou
  • how quickly you wear out your boots or shoes? And what is your preferred footwear for the walks?”
  • favourite electricity substation?
  • favourite pub in Leyton?
  • best pub in London.
  • how do you demarcate where one district of London ends and another begins?
  • which views in London never fail to move you
  • St Clement Danes church and Bow church
  • what season is your favorite to walk in?
  • do you ever find that not driving restricts your travel plans?
  • walk of York or Edinburgh.
  • Central London or City of London pubs that no longer exist
  • King Lud pub Iain Sinclair and Jack Kerouac
  • the feeling of discovering a new walk
  • favourite and least Favourite London Buildings
  • why some road names are single names?
  • why some roads are just called ‘High Street’
  • did you ever complete the London Loop?
  • favourite London documentaries or films?
  • favourite song or album about London?
  • reading list for the newly curious and the already entrenched?
  • favourite bridge in London and if so why?
  • how long do you spend writing the script for each video?
  • Madness songs walk
  • famous person that you didn’t like asked to join you on a walk
  • river walk taking the pubs on the Thames

The Black Path – launch events

I’m doing two events to launch my new publication – The Black Path

24th October 7pm – The Broadway Bookshop, Hackney – RSVP books@broadwaybookshophackney.com

21st November 7.30pm – The Wanstead Tap – book via the Eventbrite link below:

Register on Eventbrite

The Black Path is published by Three Imposters as part of the London Adventures series.

The shades of long-dead writers in the London streets, random meetings, quests and journeys striking lines across the city, the past seeping through the pavements, the unexpected erupting through the fabric of everyday life, glimpses of the fantastic in the ordinary: London Adventures can be any or all of these.
John Rogers’ contribution to the series is a psychogeographical ramble along the Black Path, an old drovers and porters road from Walthamstow to the markets in the City, featuring pie and mash shops and pubs, Francesca’s Cafe and the Battle of Broadway Market, the London bodysnatchers, the violent origins of Haggerston Park and much, much more from the colourful history of an ancient route.
Previous writers in the series include Iain Sinclair and Xiaolu Guo.
Limited numbered edition of 250 copies.
Price £10.00
Published by Three Impostors

Author John Rogers at the London Adventures launch, London Welsh Centre 29th March 2023
London Adventures launch London Welsh Centre 29th March 2023

The Stonebridge Brook in Tottenham

I received this brilliant email from Barry Parker with information about the Stonebridge Brook around Culvert Road and Seven Sisters Road.

“As a child I lived in Greenfield Road,N 15.

The area where Culvert Road met Seven Sisters Road would flood when there was heavy rain in Hornsey. This flooded houses in Culvert Road, Durnford Street, Seven Sisters Road…..
It was a poor area and the Tottenham Council didn’t want to pay for new drainage. My father Robert (Bob) Parker and his friend Fred Boringer ( ex Mayor of Tottenham) mounted a campaign to make the council take action.
It included an article on the back page of the Daily Mirror, my father standing as an independent  candidate in the local election, letters to the rich and famous. As a child I was a stamp collector and I had envelopes from Prince Philip, 10 Downing Street…….
In the end they were successful. Later I remember Culvert Road having large concrete pipes laid.
My aunt lived at 3 Culvert Road and Mygrandfather lived at 607 Seven Sisters Roadthe tobacconists(on the corner of Culvert Road.) When the excavations took place they found that the original culvert was made of wood.
This all happened in the 1950s. I was born in 1946 and the campaigning happened when I was in the Junior School. I think I was about 11 when the work took place.
I always thought that Stonebridge Brook ran into the railway land rather than on Stonebridge Road. The flooding of Culvert road ended  along Seven Sisters Road.at the entrance to Elizabeth Road.
I hope you find this interesting. Feel free to use this in any way you wish. Unfortunately I no longer live in London but in York. 
Yours Barry Parker”