Weekly Roundup #4

The days are shorter, colder and damper. I've now zipped the quilted liner into my raincoat and am wearing my somewhat itchy charity shop scarf. Soon I'll don my fleece gloves and hat. I'm slowing down. I'm still getting a lot of steps in and covering a fair amount of territory, but I'm no longer dashing from place to place in order to cram as much as possible into each day. Also, I'm trying to be better about doing a Pilates class (video replays from my home studio) a couple of mornings per week, and that means I'm out the door a bit later. And so, this week began at a more leisurely pace. Good thing, however, because I knocked it out of the park on Friday with a day trip to Cambridge (read on, mates).

I was again a bit at loose ends on Monday, as so many of the cultural institutions are closed that day or I've already been to the ones that are open or there's nothing on that particularly interests me at the other open venues. I decided to do another ramble from Stephen Millar's Hidden London Walks v. 4, this time Kentish Town. I've so appreciated that the publisher has provided downloadable maps of each of the walks, though you do need to read the books to get the intel about each of the spots. This particular walk takes in bits of Camden Town at the southern end, Kentish Town in the middle, and Gospel Oak at the north. I opted for the southern and middle bits. 

My ramble began by walking eastward along Prince of Wales Road until I reached the former St Pancras Public Baths building (now the Kentish Town Sports Center as well as residential flats), which is Grade II listed. At the time it was constructed, there were four baths (pools) inside -- men's and women's, first and second class. The exterior clearly marks the first and second class men's entrances. Try as I might, I could not locate the doors that women used to access the baths. 

Next, I took a little detour to see a plaque to Boris the Cat in Anglers Lane.

 

I then nipped down Kelly Street, with its charming pastel houses, some decked out for Halloween.

I headed south from there, in the direction of Camden Town along Kentish Town Road, stopping to look at what was the South Kentish Town tube station. Designed by Leslie Green in his signature oxblood red tiling, it was in use on what later became the Northern Line of the tube from 1907 to 1924. It's now a pawn broker. 

Across the road is a former public toilet, now Creation Studios. 

Reversing direction and continuing northward along Kentish Town Road, I came to the former storefront of Blustons ladieswear shop. I'd seen it from the number 134 bus three years ago and had wanted to get a better look. The family business operated for 84 years at this location before closing in 2015. (There was a brief attempt to reopen it under new management, but that only lasted two years.) Since 2018, the shop with its Grade II listed facade has been the home of a charity shop. The display windows are now full of vintage items. Unfortunately, the shop was closed for lunch when I came by, but I'll try to go back another day when they are open. Readers, do click on the three links to see some fantastic photos of the shop interior and exterior. 

I continued north as far as Kentish Town national rail station before bailing on the walk route, which would have taken me to Gospel Oak, and just ambled around instead. I bought a sandwich and went in search of some green space for a sit-down. This was not an easy quest. Kentish Town was booming in the 19th century as a residential area for working-class people -- primarily, I think, the families of Irish men who had come to London to work on the nearby canal and railroad -- and there aren't any squares, parks or even churchyards. I ended up doubling back to Talacre Gardens near Prince of Wales Road where I found a bench. After my late lunch, I zig-zagged my way back to Haverstock Hill and reached home just as the rain was starting. Along the way, I passed some interesting-looking businesses including Leverton & Sons funeral director that had been, according to its signage, owned and managed by the same family for eight generations and the Gipsy Queen, which looks like a great boozer.

In the evening, I hopped the tube to High Street Kensington to attend yet another free book launch at the Kensington and Chelsea Library. The book was Death Lines: Walking London's Horror History. The American author, Lauren Barnett, has a long-standing fascination with both horror films and London, living here now (I gather she married a Brit). She had looked for guided (or self-guided) walks featuring horror film locations and, having found none, wrote the book. I've never been that keen on horror films, but her book sounds so fun that I might just put a few in my Netflix queue for winter viewing. 

Tuesday started with a Pilates class and a bus ride down to Bloomsbury again. I didn't need to be anywhere until 2 pm, so I used the time to pop into some places I'd missed on my previous Bloomsbury junkets. I saw two gallery shows -- Stars at the Brunswick Art Gallery (mostly photos and prints of pop/rock stars) and masks by Romuald Hazoumè at the October Gallery. I wasn't so keen on the former, but enjoyed the latter and took a lot of rubbish snaps for a mate who loves masks. Here are two, but do click the gallery link above for much better photos. 

I then went back to the Wellcome Collection to see their new exhibition, In Plain Sight, which is all about vision and perception. It turned out to be a bigger exhibition than I'd expected, so I saw only about 3/4 of it but found it very interesting. Maybe that's because I've had rubbish vision almost my entire life and have had cataract surgery in both eyes. I grabbed a sandwich from the caff, shoved it down my gob and headed on.

I was due to meet my new friend Lesley at 2 pm in front of King's Cross Station. I seem to never learn how long it takes to get from one place to another along the Euston Road, so I was hustling all the way but made it only a few minutes late. Lesley is a walking tour guide who is currently doing the Camden guiding course. She needed to explore a few locations around King's X and Somers Town. I also wanted to check out a few places, and was happy to have good company. And Lesley was wanting to time some bits for one of her test walks and get feedback. After our ramble, we stopped for tea in the caff at the British Library. I'm really happy to have made a new acquaintance in London and look forward to staying in touch.

Wednesday took me to the National Gallery for the Winslow Homer exhibition and then to mooch around Lincoln's Inn and the Sir John Soane Museum. 

I LOVED the Homer exhibition. I'd originally thought it would be a bunch of seascapes that I'd already seen (the Clark Art Institute near home has a ton of his paintings), but was I ever wrong. I learned so much about him -- his work doing illustrations for Harper's Weekly during the Civil War, paintings in the south of African Americans during Reconstruction, and his lovely watercolours painted in Florida and the Caribbean. 

After gobbling down my packed lunch, along with a pastel de nata from Santa Nata in New Row (probably the best I've had -- warm, gooey custard and lovely flakey crust) while sat on a bench in the churchyard of St Paul's Covent Garden, I walked eastward across Covent Garden to Holborn. 

This was the first time I'd found myself near Lincoln's Inn when it wasn't the weekend (when the gates are closed to the public) so I took advantage and had a butcher's at the buildings, including the chapel and undercroft. 

I hadn't been inside Sir John Soane's house since 2004. It's as bonkers as I remember, with artifacts, sculpture, architectural bits, paintings, etc. filling every nook and cranny. The house is just as it was when he lived there, so the objects have no labels or text to explain them. I could have used the Bloomberg Connects app to access more info about each room and its contents, but the app drives me nuts so I just wandered around. There's so much stuff to look at that you can't properly take any of it in, but as it's a free venue and utterly unique it really is a must-see. Maybe once is enough. 

Thursday was another grey, gloomy, damp day. I went to the City for a few hours and took in the London Mithraeum (a temple that dates to Roman times, under the Bloomberg building in Walbrook). Tickets are free but you must prebook as it's a popular venue and they don't allow many people in at a time. It's one of those immersive experiences that I sometimes balk at, but this is very, very well done. I learned more in a half hour there than I did in two hours touring the crowded Roman site in Bath. 

I dodged the raindrops and walked west along Upper Thames Street to look at the Queenhithe mosaic mural, which shows the history of the Queen's Wharf in tiled panels. It's lovely, but in need of a good cleaning.

Next, I popped into the Bank of England Museum (also free) to see their exhibit on the Bank's connection to the slave trade. An interesting and informative installation, but far too many panels with a lot of text. I stumbled upon a room near the toilets that dealt with modern currency and included a short film about the polymer notes. At last I understood what this plastic money is all about and how they make it. (See my previous post about trekking up to Golders Green to exchange my now-worthless 20 pound paper notes). 

The Guildhall Art Gallery was my final stop in the City to see the exhibition Inspired. They've pulled a number of paintings and sculptures from their vast collection (owned by the City of London) and grouped them according to the artists' inspiration for the work -- poetry, music, literature and theatre. A lot of what the gallery has in it's permanent collection is Victorian allegorical paintings, so much of the exhibition featured these. Not my usual cup of tea, but there were also some more modern works that I liked. I also popped into their new (to me) undercroft gallery where they rotate a small number of works from the collection that depict London itself. I thought this was the best bit. 

In the evening, I met my friend Simon at King's X for a quick dinner and then over to King's Place to see Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton, an African American blues, roots, ragtime, jazz performer. I love this music from the early 1900s and listen to it a lot on the radio but I'd never heard of Paxton. Here's his bio. An incredibly versatile and accomplished musician, he played guitar, fiddle, banjo, harmonica and piano during this performance. One his banjos, which has a lovely tone to it, was made in 1848 and belonged to his great-grandfather. In addition to the fantastic music, he entertained us with stories of his family, jokes and off-colour puns. He's in his early 30s, so here's hoping he has a long and celebrated career ahead of him. I'll be on the lookout for him passing through western Massachusetts. 

And that brings me to Friday, my day out of London to go to Cambridge. Greater Anglia was offering special 10 and 15 quid fares to select destinations if booked by midnight on 30 October. I've never been to Cambridge, and as it was on the list for a tenner, I booked for a day that looked like the weather would cooperate (it did) and the railway workers wouldn't strike (they didn't). Roger had sent me a link to the Defaced exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum (free with timed entry) about money, conflict and protest, so I booked for that as well. Other than that, I had no specific plan for the day other than rambling around, peering into the colleges (you can't actually enter them during term time), gawping at the architecture, seeing the punts on the River Cam, and possibly making it to Murray Edwards College to see their collection of works by women artists, allegedly the largest such collection in Europe. To recap: the Defaced exhibition was great, mooching around the colleges and lanes was lovely, and I'm SO glad I schlepped all the way up to Murray Edwards College (one of two women's colleges at Cambridge). Their art collection is displayed along various corridors of a multi-purpose brutalist building, interesting in it's own right. After all the medieval halls and gothic spires -- which I can relate to about as much as I can to Hogwarts -- it felt so nice to be where art occupies a space bustling with women, students and faculty going to and fro, rooms for study and dining, various offices and student services, and all that I know and love about a women's college. 

Here are some photos of the Fitzwilliam, the town streets and the university:

The Corpus Clock outside Corpus Christi College (sadly, I didn't see it strike the hour):

Murray Edwards College New Hall:

I was thrilled that the first art work I saw at Murray Edwards was by Faith Ringgold:

And so that's a wrap on this past week. It's been an odd week, a bit of a transition. I'm no longer feeling compelled to go, go, go, see, see, see. As a result, I have less of a sense of accomplishment at the end of each week. But on the other hand, I've been liberated from the tourist schedule and am feeling more and more like a Londoner. I've been very disconnected from what's going on with the mid-term elections at home, only hearing bits of news on the World Service. I'll need to pay more attention come Tuesday. To say I'm worried puts it mildly. 

One more full week and then a few days more before I head back home with very mixed emotions.

Stats: 

Monday, Oct 31

£3.25 sandwich from Pret

£4.79 groceries

22,387 steps

9.27 miles

Tuesday, Nov 1

99p Boots (throat lozenges)

£4.25 sandwich

£10 hummus and wine

21,293 steps

8.85 miles

Wednesday, Nov 2

£6 Homer exhibition (half price with Art Pass)

£2.10 pastel de nata

£3 groceries

15,945 steps

6.56 miles

Thursday, Nov 3

£3 Guildhall Art Gallery (half price with Art Pass)

£2.15 groceries

£4.50 dinner at Leon 

£24.75 performance at King's Place 

20,278 steps

8.32 miles

Friday, Nov 4

£10 train ticket to Cambridge

£1.80 pastel de nata

£13 groceries and wine

27,484 steps

11.47 miles