Saturday night at Nottingham Station. The heavens opened and the rain lashed down. The over-excited Hen Night parties singing Abba anthems piled onto regional services to other cities.
On the way to the station we passed over the Nottingham Canal illuminated by a light installation.
Back in May 2021 I visited artist Maud Milton at her studio in Trinity Buoy Wharf at Leamouth East London where she creates the beautiful mosaic roundels that you can see at railway stations around London. Maud was working on a new roundel for Selhurst Station during the interview.
Among the roundels Maud has created are: Gospel Oak, South Tottenham, Thornton Heath, Walthamstow Central, Leyton Midland Road, Leytonstone High Road, St James Street, Chingford, and Highams Park.
“They’ve got modern twist to them and they they act like signage, but they’re an artwork and they’re made by hundreds of people in the community … when you go close up and you start reading the words and you know some of the words, will make you laugh. Some of the things that they say are really poignant, especially at the moment.”
Maud milton
Shot at Trinity Buoy Wharf, 2021
You can find out more about Maud on her website https://artyface.co.uk/wp/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maudmilton/
Additional roundel images and footage in this video courtesy of Maud Milton
The world premiere of London Overground is on Sat 2nd July at the Rio Cinema, Dalston screening in the East End Film Festival. I’ve been working on the film for almost exactly a year now following on from the interview I shot with Iain Sinclair about the book. Shortly afterwards we shot the first section of the Overground walk with Andrew Kotting – strolling from Rotherhithe Station to the Thames shore then down to Surrey Quays through Andrew’s old memory grounds. We stopped in the same cafe they did in the book, La Cigale near Greenland Dock.
From there we dropped by the Cafe Gallery in Southwark Park where Andrew deposited a found object from the Thames shore, and passed by the New Den to Queens Road Peckham. The walked ended with possibly one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever filmed … but you’ll have to watch the film to find out.
The next shoot with Bill Parry-Davies of Open Dalston picking through the horrors of regeneration around Dalston Junction and getting to the heart of the Overground loop and it how it gave birth to a new model of property development in London underpinned by overseas investment.
In autumn and early winter Iain and I walked alone in two stages from Haggerston back to the Thames at Wapping. Here we traversed key landscapes in Iain’s life and writing – the East End, Truman Brewery, Anti-University, Hare Marsh, Whitechapel, St. Dunstan’s-in-the-East, Narrow Street, Wapping.
I was back out on the road with Andrew and Iain early this year as they reprised the Overground walk in full but in reverse – starting in the evening and walk counter-clockwise through the night arriving back in Haggerston at 10am the next day. I only stayed the course as far as Hampstead Heath but strapped a GoPro to Andrew’s head to capture highlights of the rest of the circuit.
We headed to the northwest quarter with legendary Radio On director and noir novelist Chris Petit to explore Willesden Junction – which confirmed Iain’s idea that the Overground was a ghost railway.
The rest – oh, there’s loads more including great contributions from Marcia Farquhar and Cathi Unsworth, a brilliant soundtrack from the likes of Standard Planets, Bill and Adam Parry-Davies, Free Seed Music, and Rosen.
Hope to see you at the Rio on Saturday.
Eastenders had just gone on air for the first time when the last train pulled out of Lea Bridge Station in 1985. The Sinclair C5, a peculiar electric trike, had been launched and pointed the way towards a bold new future of travel. Hover cars were seemingly just around the corner. A local band, Aunt Fortescue’s Bluesrockers played as that last train chugged off down the track.
31 years on and this morning saw the re-opening of Lea Bridge Station. Eastenders is still on the telly but the C5 had ceased production before the weeds had started to grow through the platforms at Lea Bridge. We never got our hover cars, a brand new cycle shed was also opened at the station this morning instead. Aunt Fortescue’s Bluesrockers were there again on the station platform to play as the trains returned to Lea Bridge. People are cockahoop about the return of the trains and the 4 minute commute to Stratford. It turns out that Victorian modes of transport are still the most efficient ways to move around the city.
Both the Leader of Waltham Forest and the Under Secretary of State for Transport emphasised the economic boost the reopening of the station would bring to the area. A brass band played, school children sang as the first trains pulled into the Station and people waved to well-wishers as they boarded – it was like the 1860’s all over again.
It was a wonderful occasion, even if it was marred by the MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy sobbing as the celebratory cake was cut (didn’t she vote in favour of bombing Syria – and yet so easily moved to tears). I chatted to a fella called Jamie, who happened to be in Stratford last night when the first train was announced that would be stopping at Lea Bridge Station. He was the only passenger on the train and purchased the very first single ticket from Stratford to Lea Bridge, which he pulled from his wallet to show me, a precious relic, a trainspotters’ Shakespeare first folio.
The people at this end of Leyton are no longer cut off from the transport network and neglected – they can embrace the Council’s Mini Holland scheme with open arms. I noticed that Deputy Council Leader Clyde Loakes arrived on the train from Tottenham Hale pushing his bike – a clear sign that this isn’t just about trains but connecting the new cycle paths to the rail network and beyond. One day people will look back with our odd obsession with the internal combustion engine powered personal car and wonder what ever happened to the Sinclair C5. At least we got the trains back to Lea Bridge Station and a shiny new bike shed.
Every Londoner at some point should take a trip on the Epping to Ongar Railway – think of it as a reward for all those times you’ve had to change at Bank during morning rush-hour or been booted off a bus at Agar Grove on a wet Tuesday night in order to “regulate the service”.
The volunteer run trains operate on the defunct section of the Central Line that continued east from Epping through North Weald to Ongar stopping along the way at the tiny Blake Hall Station )which had the distinction of being the quietest station on the Underground with just 6 passengers a day till it closed in 1981). Tube services between Epping and Ongar stopped in 1994 but a band of passionate Railway enthusiasts run trains on the old line regularly throughout the year.
I cajoled my youngest son into the trip with tales of the golden age of steam which relied heavily on references to the Harry Potter films. The adventure starts in fine style with a journey by Routemaster from Epping Station to North Weald where we boarded a train chuffing out steam. It was interesting to see how my son was more taken by the Routemaster than the train, making me realise that he’s grown up in a post-Routemaster world whereas once you’re sat down in the train carriage it’s only the sound of the hissing chugging engine that makes the train experience distinctive.
Ongar Station
North Weald Station has been loving and beautifully restored to its 1940’s grandeur complete with vintage advertising and dark wooden ticket office. Ongar Station, built in 1865 and Grade II listed, dates from the time when this was the eastern outpost of the Great Eastern Railway before being transferred to London Underground in 1949, and has been returned to its original state.
There was something magical about watching the steam billowing out across the Essex fields and getting caught in clouds around the bare tree boughs making them look like candy-floss trees. I think next time the trains are running I’ll walk the route to experience it from the fields.
You wouldn’t normally think it was a stroke of luck to have to break a tube journey to head off on another branch of the Piccadilly Line. But in the brilliant sunshine of last Sunday morning it was my good fortune to find myself at Acton Town Station.
Looking back towards Central London was like gazing at a mountain range. Wikipedia says the station was originally called Mill Hill Park before the Piccadilly Line barged through.
It’s another of Charles Holden’s masterpieces with it’s graceful modernist curves and geometric windows.
I was grateful for the 6 minute wait for the next Rayners Lane train.