Spirits of London Halloween / Samhain walk

This is the time of year when the veil between this world and the otheworld is more porous allowing spirits and other entities to walk abroad amongst us. So I stalked the streets around Holborn and Covent Garden seeing what I could detect.

I passed by the Kingsway Tram Tunnel then strolled along Sicilian Avenue to Swedenborg House. Emmanuel Swedenborg believed he’d been granted the gift of being able to visit heaven and hell at will and commune with this he found there. The society created in his honour is still active in Bloomsbury (I’ve frequented its marvellous hall myself on occasion). Drifting past the Princess Louise I wander down Great Queen Street to Freemasons’ Hall – which seemed apt and if nothing else its grand art deco architecture is worthy of the theme. This Halloween walk then visits one of the most haunted theatres in London (or so they say), Theatre Royal Dury Lane and having done a shift or two in the bar there in a former life I can tell you that the staff are keen to vacate the building after the show and the old timers there all had a tale to tell of their ghostly encounters.
The spooky trail ends with two locations from Ben Aaronovitch’s marvellous Rivers of London book – The Royal Opera House where the book reaches its climax, and St. Paul’s Actors Church on Covent Garden Piazza where Peter Grant spots his first ghost at the beginning of the story.

Happy All Hallows Eve to you!!

Along the Thames from Erith to the Dartford Creek

When I get asked which was my favourite walk from This Other London, I’ve learnt that I need to give some sort of answer rather than just say it’s impossible to choose one. The walk for Chapter 3 from Woolwich to the Dartford Creek still stands out as the one that challenged and surprised me most. It presented a vision of London quite unlike anything I’d seen before.

Returning 9 years later to walk that last stretch from Erith, along the pier and out across the marshes to the Dartford Creek it still blew me away, despite all the hundreds of miles I’ve walked around London since.

Here’s a blog post I wrote shortly after the publication of the book in 2013.

Walking the lost River Peck

In this walk we go in search of the course of the ‘lost’ River Peck that gives its name to Peckham in South London. The Peck is said to rise near One Tree Hill in Honor Oak and then flows above ground across Peckham Rye before re-entering its culvert as it flows through the streets of Peckham just to the west of Copeland Road. Our walk then goes past Peckham Bus Garage to Kirkwood Road and picks up the course of the river again at Asylum Road near Queens Road Station. The river most likely flows beneath Brimmington Park but we continue along Asylum Road to look at the Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution Asylum. The walk takes us along the Old Kent Road to the point where the Peck crosses the road and heads along Ilderton Road to make its confluence with the Earl’s Sluice near Bermondsey South Station.

Thanks to the Peckham Society for their great blog post on The Peck

Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution Asylum Old Kent Road
Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution Asylum

Route of the walk/ course of the River Peck:
One Tree Hill – Oak of Honor
Brenchley Gardens
Marmora Road
Homestall Road
Peckham Rye
Rye Lane
Copeland Road
Blackpool Road Peckham Bus Garage
Brayards Road
Kirkwood Road
Lugard Road
Queens Road Peckham
Asylum Road Peckham
Old Kent Road
Ilderton Road SE16
South Bermondsey Station

Video shot in June 2021

Hidden Gems of London, Secret Walks & other Questions

Last week I put out a call for any questions for a Q&A session and received a deluge of fascinating enquiries. I this video I answer over 30 of the questions submitted. Timestamps below and links to videos mentioned below.

0:00 Intro – Wanstead Flats
0:57 Where is a scenic hidden gem most Londoner’s haven’t been to
3:08 Do you listen to music while out walking
3:47 Which is your favourite walk and why
4:31 Did you notice the ghost in your Van Gogh video with Iain Sinclair
4:45 What’s the most steps you’ve walked in a day
5:39 What got you into walking around London and doing YouTube
7:50 Have you always lived in London
8:29 Which is the most romantic lost rivers walk to do with a spouse
9:44 Who are you favourite current YouTube creators
12:41 Is the Thames the deepest river
12:44 How do you get you beard looking magnifique
12:51 How does it feel to have inspired people to look at the world around them in a different light
14:30 When are you going to walk the New River Path
15:10 Do you have any information on the first Licensed Victualler’s School
17:27 Any tips on researching obscure subject matter
19:01 Are there any places left that were settings in Jane Austen’s novels
19:52 Suggestions for non-fiction books on the history and landscape of London
21:03 Explain the appeal of your favourite walks and Epping Forest
22:47 Have you thought of doing walks around some of the interesting buildings of London such as Crossness Pumping Station and Strawberry Hill House
24:13 Would you make a TV series of your walks
25:38 What one-mile distance will you never tire of walking
26:14 What’s the longest walk you’ve done from London without relying on public transport
26:37 How many London boroughs have you walked through in a single day and which areas of London feature in your second book
29:38 Has there been any place on your wanderings that has left you feeling spooked
31:10 Chas and Dave fan?
31:17 What’s your favourite historic pub in London and your favourite all-round pub
32:56 Any more walks around London cemeteries
33:18 Do you think anyone would try to replicate Crystal Palace
34:11 Have you considered writing a book of river walks
35:41 Do you have a script for your videos or do you freestyle it
38:19 Do you have secret walks you keep to yourself
39:22 What’s your favourite stretch of the River Lea
39:47 Have you considered using dowsing to help find underground rivers
41:03 Do you know the origins of the village name Flackwell Heath

Links
Wanstead Park History https://youtu.be/ANSy1J3wB-Y
Boudicca’s Obelisk and Warlies Park https://youtu.be/xjJ8X-gu26c
Loughton Camp to Epping Green via Warlies Park https://youtu.be/oZIhCWqzzcA
My Longest River Lea Walk – Leytonstone to Hertford https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXstPcwoEZQ
Van Gogh’s London with Iain Sinclair https://youtu.be/ge0uukXgpDg
Abandoned Farm at Twyford Abbey https://youtu.be/EtKvaXSJui8
Keiller’s London first Walk – Vauxhall to Strawberry Hill https://youtu.be/3fN7gWUaAdA

Music
Fresh Fallen Snow by Chris Haugen

A Stroll through Highgate – Cemetery, Village & Vampire

Somehow I’d managed to get this far through life without visiting Highgate Cemetery, which is something I put right the other Sunday. Sultry Sunday afternoons are the perfect time for a cemetery walk and the Northern Heights are particularly appealing on such days (although crisp winter early evening is my favourite time to end up in Highgate Village).

Entering the East Cemetery the first grave I encounter is that of the great folk musician Bert Jansch alongside his wife. Not far away is Corin Redgrave of the acting dynasty and just behind is the gravestone of one of my favourite writers, Douglas Adams, a plain black monolith that must surely be a reference to 2001. I learnt from the comments on my YouTube video that the plant pot of pens is a reference to a riff in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy about the place where lost pens go and apparently visitors to Adams’ grave often leave a pen behind in the plant pot. I must now return there to deposit a pen.

Highgate Cemetery from a YouTube video by John Rogers thelostbyway.com

I was tickled by the fact that the cemetery gift shop’s most popular merchandise line was connected to Karl Marx – fridge magnets, various editions of the Communist Manifesto, badges etc. – nearly all of which were sold out. Oddly they didn’t stock David Farrant’s pamphlet ‘Beyond the Highgate Vampire’, which tells the take of when the area was gripped by Vampire fever in the early 1970’s.

Departing Highgate Cemetery I wandered through the delightful Waterlow Park and was surprised to see that this is where the Lux artist film organisation has relocated to from Dalston (their third home?). I must return for a screening sometime, maybe after taking a pen to Douglas Adams’ grave.

The Gatehouse Pub, Highgate from a YouTube video by John Rogers
The Gatehouse

Highgate Village, I feel, is best visited in midwinter, when the presence of the ghosts is easier to detect. I like to find a corner in the Gatehouse Pub and watch them drift through the bar. I wonder if this spectral presence is what drew Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Highgate?

Fields of View – celebration of A.L. Rees

Last night at The Others in Stoke Newington saw perhaps the greatest (ever) gathering of artist film-makers in London since the heyday of the London Film-makers Co-op. The occasion was a specially curated programme of films to mark the publication Fields of View by A.L. Rees and celebrate the legacy of the great artist film writer and academic who sadly passed away in 2014.

Fields of View A.L. Rees The Others Stoke Newington

It felt a great privilege to witness such a programme of 63 one-minute films, many made especially for Al to mark the occasion, organised by Simon Payne, Deniz Johns, and Andrew Vallance, with many, if not most, of the film-makers present. The programme notes state:
“Friends, colleagues and past students of Al Rees have contributed one-minute films and videos to celebrate his posthumous book Fields of View* and the spirit of the man who was an ardent supporter of experimental cinema. Many have made new pieces for the occasion and responded directly to key terms and ideas that they found in his writing.”

Simon Payne and Deniz Johns introducing the event

The programme included films by John Smith, Adam Kossoff, Amy Dickson, Emily Richardson, Esther Johnson, Guy Sherwin, William Raban, Cathy Rogers, Nicky Hamlyn, Suky Best, and Chris Welsby.
You can read the full programme notes here.

The video above is a short extract of Cathy’s Rogers’ film Radiator (yes Cathy is my sister) which required the 16mm projector to be turned onto its side, with the spools facing down.