Along the Bow Back Rivers
I crossed Stratford High Street and then found my way to Pudding Mill Lane station on the DLR. I passed across and along one of the Bow Back Rivers, originally created to channel water power from the River Lee to the flour mills in the area.
At present access is restricted to many of these rivers because of construction of both the Olympic Park and CrossRail. But they will become a major water feature of the Olympics. The City Mill River and the City Mill Lock have recently been restored.
Onwards to Stratford High Street
I walked onwards from Three Mills towards the Olympic Park along the Three Mills Wall River, which is part of the River Lea.
It was an interesting walk with a lot to see.
You can’t actually reach Stratford High Street at the moment, becuse of construction work.
It looks like they will be encouraging spectators to walk to the Olympic Park from Bromley-by-Bow station along this route. They have put in quite a few places to have a picnic, which you could buy in Tesco’s at Bow.
Three Mills, Bow
In my previous post, I said things just had to get better and they did.
These pictures were taken in the area called Three Mills, which is now a studios.
It wasn’t what I’d expected. Especially, as one of the mills is the largest tidal mill in the world.
I have a feeling that Bass Charrington, who owned the site in the 1970s, used these buildings from where they marketed the infamous, Hirondelle wine. It was a success and the company was a customer of Time Sharing Ltd.
A Walk From Bromley-By-Bow
In some ways London can be confusing to the visitor in that it does tend to reuse place names. For instance tonight I wanted a walk and as there had been reports of a new bridge over the River Lee at Bow, I thought I’d try and find it. So I went not to Bromley but to Bromley-by-Bow station, which is on the District and Metropolitan lines. This is also the destination of the 488 bus, which starts running from Dalston Junction station tomorrow, so I wanted to see if it was worth a visit.
Initial impressions were not good, as I took a rather grim underpass to the other side of a dual carriageway leading to the Blackwall Tunnel and then passed a typical Tescos.
Has any of their supermarkets, ever won an award for atchitecture? This one certainly didn’t deserve one, unless it was for the demolishing the worst building in East London.
My walk had to get better.
The Barriers Go Down at Dalston Junction
I came back through Dalston Junction station today and the barriers are down at the Southern exit.
The Barriers Are Down at Dalston Junction
As you can see they’ve got all the signs up for the extension of the 488 bus route, which starts tomorrow on Saturday the 4th.
The bus spider map for Dalston has the new route fully shown, but they haven’t updated the maps in the station yet.
How To Handle Enquiries
Horse racing often gets a certain amount of negative publicity.
On Saturday, I am thinking of going to the Epsom Derby, as if the Queen’s Horse, Carlton House, should win, it will be one of those truly I-was-there moments, that only happen once in a century.
So I phoned the enquiries number at the course, got straight through to a real person and the conversation went like this.
Q: Can you buy tickets for the Upper Tattersalls Enclosure on the day?
A: Yes! We hope to have lots on the gate.
Q: Will I be able to get into the centre of the course to the fun fair and the market from there?
A: Yes!
Q: How far is the enclosure from Tattenham Corner Station?
A: About half-a-mile.
I then decided I was going, especially as there is a direct train from London Bridge at 11:45.
So why sometimes do simple questions about events sometimes take hours?
Transmanche Metro
This is an idea that I found on Wikipedia for Stratford station, which talks of the proposed “Transmanche Metro” service to Calais via local stations.
It appears to contain a certain degree of kite-flying and some of the references seem to link it with French politics. There is this article on a holiday home web site.
On the other hand a direct route from Stratford in East London to Lille, via Ebbsfleet, Ashford and Calais might prove to be a lower cost alternative to Eurostar, especially for commuters, business and families, especially if it offered a virtually turn-up-and-go service.
The problems with setting it up would probably be more to do with the vested interests of Eurostar and SNCF, than anything to do with access to the Channel Tunnel or safety issues.
Will it ever happen?
Probably not for a couple of years or so, but then who’d have thought that such as Ryanair and easyJet would grow so big, when they started by providing a low-cost alternative to the major airlines. So don’t predict anything!
The Other Side of the Olympic Site
Yesterday, I took the train from Stratford to Tottenham Hale. It is actually a slow train to Stansted Airport, that stops in several places on its way to the airport.
It runs every thirty minutes or so, so it is not often the most convenient way to get between the two places, but because of the various developments and countryside along the line it makes a pleasant alternative as you wander up the Lee Valley.
A New Stratford Emerges
I went to Stratford station today as it has now been announced that the station upgrade is complete.
There are still a few things to do, but as the pictures show, it’s a lot better than a few years ago.
Dalston Junction to Canary Wharf with an Awkward Parcel
This morning I had to take an awkward parcel, which was something I’d sold on eBay to Canary Wharf for the buyer to take away. It wasn’t that heavy, but it was 60 cm. long and 36 cm. in diameter. I’d wrapped it in an IKEA carrier bag, and it wasn’t too difficult to carry to Dalston Junction station. The station has a lift and this took me down to the platform, where I was able to wait in a New Cross train until it left. I took the train to Canada Water, where I used the lift to get me to the Jubilee line for Canary Wharf, where another lift and an escalator got me to the level of the shopping centre, where I was to meet the buyer outside Waitrose.
After lunch in Carluccio’s and some shopping in Waitrose, I retraced my route, with a large shopping bag, that except for the two hundred metres or so, happily sat on the floor of the lift or train.
It just shows how if you have to move something large, you can often do it using the stations with lifts. At least with a bit of planning!
The Anonymous Widower 