Edgware Road

The end of March saw an expedition to my old stomping grounds in and around the building site which was to become what we now know as Westway. This was in the bad old days when brewers had pubs and pubs had tenants. Mine hosts who cared about their houses and their customers. Some of whom sold meat sandwiches, before this practise was revealed to be both unhygienic and unprofitable, this last because it was no longer something carried on in the side lines, below the radar, by mine host's wife.

One of these houses was an estate pub called the Oliver Arms, now revealed by Bing and reference 2 to be an exotic restaurant.

A place which was built in the mid 19th century and which was demolished in the mid 20th century, to be rebuilt as part of a redevelopment - perhaps as part of a slum clearance - with the second creation not lasting anything like as long as the first.

While the Ariana lasted an even shorter time, with its replacement looking to have given up during the plague. At least the mounting for the pub sign survives as a reminder of better days. In the event, I passed quite close, but did not quite make it.

Back with the end of March, a day which was cold and damp, with a cold north east wind.

Much cogitation about how best to get to Edgware Road, eventually settling for Bullingdon from Vauxhall, up to Victoria, through to Hyde Park Corner and up Park Lane. Hearing on the way that several platform lifts were out of action at Clapham Junction and that if this presented a problem you should contact platform staff. I wondered what they proposed to do with a wheeler - that is someone confined to a wheel chair - stranded on one of these platforms. Put him or her onto the next train for someone else, somewhere else to deal with?

I was reminded that Vauxhall to Edgware Road is a gentle climb, in fact a bit of a pull against a cold wind. Also that big junctions can still be a bit hairy, even with the various improvements made for cyclists - improvements which probably work better when you are familiar with them.

Broke the journey at Hyde Park Corner, partly for a breather, partly to avoid the 30 minute paywall, where I was entertained by a Royal Cart out on exercise, complete with a range of outriders, including, one supposes, the heavy gang in a black limo, the front of which is visible left. 

There were also lots of spring flowers.

Dropped my Bullingdon at Porchester Place, still an interesting looking area to wander around in, not least because of all the Arab and Middle Eastern goings-on in Edgware Road itself.

Next stop the Lord Wargrave at the top end of the first stretch of the Edgware Road, that is to say a little before you get to Edgware Road tube station, once the site of the M&S HQ, but this last seems to have moved to the redeveloped Paddington Basin, a little to the west and across the canal basin from St. Mary's Hospital. A place which nows calls itself a pub and smokehouse. The barman was clearly used to tourists asking if that meant that they were allowed to smoke indoors - the answer being no, the smoke in question was for application to the food rather than to lungs. But they also sold a reasonable range of white wine, which suited me, and a very large selection of whisky, some of it rather expensive.

The food looked quite good too, and maybe I will be back for that on another occasion. In the meantime, I admired the industrial grade air conditioning, which looked too new to date from the days when smoking was permitted.

While more or less opposite we had the Powys Wing of the Christian Union Almshouse, quite possibly both a listed building and a listed institution.

From there back down to the place where I was going to eat, taking in several shops which occupied the niche that would once have been occupied by offies for all the the servants of all the people who lived in the houses round about. I did not get to find out why bottled water was sold in such profusion and I can only think this morning that there must be some Koranic or Sharia rules concerning the consumption of infidel water from a tap.

More of same. And so to the Al Dar of reference 3, a rather more authentic version of the Comptoir Libanais of  Kingston of reference 4. As it happened, we took a rather more authentic version of the lunch we had had on that occasion. Including my first oral experience of okra - which struck me at the time as being rather like a very small courgette or cucumber would be when cooked. They also had the flattest flat bread I have ever come across - a good deal more filling than it looks, so readers who are tempted to give the place a try, take note.

The wind had not died down, so at one point the little ornamental bucket in which the charcoal cubes for the hookahs were kept, flew across the pavement and was squashed very flat by a passing lorry. The hot cubes were scattered around the kerb, with one of them giving out an evil looking puff of black smoke when it was crushed by one of the tyres of another lorry. Too small, we thought, to do significant damage to the tyre. Bicycle tyre another matter.

From there, headed north again to see what I could make of the area in and around Westway, which started out as something of a concrete jungle. Eventually to find that Paddington Green was just that, rather leafy, rather like Islington Green to the east.

Interesting looking church, still functioning as a church, but very firmly shut on this occasion. Possibly, to judge by reference 5, what some people call a happy-clappy outfit. Anathema to those of a High Church persuasion.

No sign of the police station, once, as I recall, specially designated and adapted for the accommodation of terrorists.

From there, to the start of Harrow Road, thinking vaguely to push on to the Neeld Arms, an Irish house when I knew it.  With some trade from the hospital across the road, long since demolished. This morning, I turn up reference 6, which suggests a spot of trouble a few years ago, but I think it is up and running again. This despite Bing managing to connect the address in Harrow Road with a house in a place called Grittleton, near Chippenham, run by Charlie and Boo and noticed at reference 7.

But it was a bit cold and windy and I chickened out, electing instead to cut south into Little Venice, another place not visited for many years. With the snap above also taking in part of what I used to know as Section 6 of Westway. Main contractor, John Laing, which still seems to exist at reference 8 - despite my thinking that they had disappeared inside the people at reference 9. Perhaps these last are no relation. But I do remember once, at a time when the Treasury was keen to promote contact with business and industry, participating in a visit to the Laing HQ, probably once a town house in some smart part of London. Decorated by rather whimsical, painted pictures of their sites by their house artist. Followed up by a visit to a Severn Bridge, then under construction. We were taken around by a senior chap called the project director, sporting a special white hat to mark him out. I learned that the tubes through the concrete box sections carrying the steel stressing cables were no longer grouted, as they had been in my day. Which meant that they could be taken out (one at a time that is), inspected and replaced as necessary.

Then all of a sudden, you were almost out in the country. Weeping willows and all. I then thought to try and find the Royal Oak public house, once patronised after work.

However, while I did find the bridge which contained the entrance to the Royal Oak tube station, perhaps in need of a bit of TLC, at the western extremity of Paddington Station, I found no trace of the public house of that name.

Pushed on to find myself at the very end of Queensway, an end I had forgotten existed. Past the once grand Porchester Hall, once the town hall, now with a library in one corner. Once a grand and serious place, with lots of fancy brown wood doors with once polished brass fittings. Past the once grand Whitleys, now a very large building site, completely dressed in white plastic sheets. And so into Moscow Road where I remembered occasional use of the Moscow Arms, the sort of pub where Bayswater types played chess of an evening.

A Moscow Road which also has a St. Petersburg Place, a Russian grocer and what looks like a Russian church. I didn't even try to get in, falling for what I learned had once been the Moscow Arms. Now owned by Greene King and including a cook from somewhere to the east of Greece. He lived in Milton Keynes and he explained that there was a very good train service, so good that he could probably get home in less time than it would take me to get to Epsom, even quite late into the night. A touch of snow outside, which made me wonder about the heating bills, the windows being very large and single glazed. I was told that double glazers could not manage the semi-circular tops to the windows, listed windows, so the their general appearance had to be preserved. Also that the place was not so posh that they didn't get the occasional drunk in the evening, usually a chuck-out from the place a few yards down the road.

A curious looking facility across the road, with fairly serious looking security. I thought possibly overflow from Paddington Green police station, mentioned above. But the barman was fairly sure that it was out of use and that it was up for conversion to a parade of shops - despite it seeming to be rather an improbable site for same.

There was also a Bullingdon stand opposite, but I decided that cycling back down to Vauxhall would perhaps be a step too far, and settled for a tube train from Bayswater to Wimbledon, which did not seem to take long at all. And I picked up a folding umbrella which someone had abandoned: BH thought a tenner, so they were unlikely to go to lost property or anywhere else for it.

Noticed this advertisement. I thought something to follow up, but inspection of reference 10 this morning suggests a cross between an exhibition about plants and art student art alleged to be inspired by plants. So not sure now.

Changing trains at Wimbledon, I thought a time-out at the Prince of Wales opposite was in order, a house I once used to patronise from time to time. Now home to rather more big screens than I remembered, some of them showing Tata cricket, presumably from somewhere in India. Possibly something to do with reference 11.

Whatever the case, it included some very athletic, not so say acrobatic fielding, pretty much on a par with the (Watford) footballing we had seen a few weeks previously. Optional display of the trajectories of the balls. Also some advertising which took the form of an array of advertising postcards behind the presenter: not something I have seen in that context before, although I think someone once made a lot of money building websites along the same lines. Charging a pound a week for each stamp - stamps which may have been clickable.

Not much mask wearing at Wimbledon Station or on the trains. But there was a young lady, possibly dressed for horse riding, wearing boots in two parts - that is to say the shoe part then the calf part separate - and very tight, dull yellow trousers. Some sort of jacket on top. Fair curly hair on top of that. Some sort of male friend in attendance. But the whole ensemble was rather striking - presumably intended so to be.

Back at Epsom, wound up the proceedings in TB, where I was interested to find that the bar staff used a machine to clock on and off, a machine which actually used clock cards - although they were kept in a bag rather than in a pair of proper racks, one for in and one for out. A machine which I was subsequently told was rather pointless as the bar staff are known to the cash till which can be programmed to produced the same sort of printouts for the purposes of pay and discipline. Pointless, I suppose, to the extent that the bar kept busy right through opening hours, which was unlikely to be the case here. Certainly was not the case on this occasion.

References

Reference 1: https://pubwiki.co.uk/LondonPubs/Paddington/OliverArms.shtml.

Reference 2: https://www.lordwargrave.com/.

Reference 3: http://aldarrestaurant.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/barge-walk.html.

Reference 5: http://www.stmaryslondon.com/.

Reference 6: https://www.metrus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Neeld-Arms.pdf. The story as at November, 2014.

Reference 7: https://www.neeldarms.co.uk/.

Reference 8: https://www.laing.com/.

Reference 9: https://www.laingorourke.com/.

Reference 10: https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/YZeNOxEAACQAXM-0.

Reference 11: https://www.tata.com/about-us/sponsorships/ipl.