London has eight public footpath level crossings, and today I'm going to walk you across another of them. Bourneview (CR8 5AD) We're in Kenley in the London borough of Croydon, a couple of miles southeast of Purley. Two railway lines wend down this dry chalk valley but we want the line to Caterham, the lower of the pair, shortly before trains cross the boundary into Surrey and pull up at Whyteleafe. The footpath crossing to the north of Kenley station has been converted to a diversionary footbridge in the form of two very long ramps. The footpath crossing nearer Whyteleafe has been converted ..read more

Sadiq's manifesto has finally been published so let's take a look (mainly so there's a blogpost to check at the end of his term in 2028). Title: A fairer, safer, greener London for everyone Pages: 67 Top 10 pledges 1) Free school meals ...a current policy planned for extension but not actually a given, merely to "work to make universal free school meals permanent", and only for primary schools 2) Freeze TfL fares ...but only "until 2025" which isn't a pledge it's a fact because fares only rise once a year. There is however a promise to "continue to freeze fares for as long as economic con ..read more

In precisely two weeks' time Londoners get their chance to vote for a new Mayor. They won't, they'll vote for the old Mayor because Sadiq Khan is so far ahead in the polls he's effectively unstoppable. But we do know the 12 people who won't replace him, most of whom are destined to lose their £10,000 deposit, and we also know many of their policies. Here's my clickable summary. The mainstream three • Susan Hall (Conservative Party): Susan entered London politics in 2006 as a councillor for Hatch End and rose to become Leader of Harrow council, at least for a few months. Since 2019 she's be ..read more

I said I wasn't going to make a habit of this, and I'm not, but I've ticked off two more. This is the northeast corner of London, from Hainault Country Park round to North Ockendon, annotated with all the places you can cross the boundary by car, train or public footpath. Discounting the M25, which forms a lot of the boundary hereabouts, only nine of the crossings are roads. That's how successful the Green Belt has been. The black ticks are all the crossings I've crossed and the latest two are the pair just northeast of Noak Hill. I walked out of one and back in via the other. In the middl ..read more

    WHITEHALL £140   London's Monopoly Streets WHITEHALL Colour group: pink Purchase price: £140 Rent: £10 Length: 500m Borough: Westminster Postcode: SW1 Whitehall is one of the most famous and historic streets in London but has been tucked away on the cheap-to-middling side of the Monopoly board, perhaps because it's not a real estate hotspot. Instead it's an administrative hub for the highest echelons of government, the focus of our Remembrance commemorations and a conduit for protest, as well as the site of what was once the world's largest royal palace. As a str ..read more

Once their leaves come out, trees are green until the autumn. But they're never as brilliantly green as they are in early spring when the leaves are still young. The canopy is a beautiful burst of light greens, a mix of subtle tones of jade and emerald. Here's the view from Richmond Hill looking proper lush. But it never lasts. As the weeks go by the greens get inexorably darker and well before summer they're all just identikit deep green, those fresh contrasts lost. The shift to autumn's also fabulous, don't get me wrong, but nothing beats the first flush of green we get to enjoy in April ..read more

The Battle of Barnet, one of the key turning points of the Wars of the Roses, took place on 14th April 1471. A 553rd anniversary's not particularly major but unfortunately I missed the 550th, as did most of the population of Barnet due to lockdown issues. Also the battle took place on a foggy Sunday morning, so at least I've got the day of the week right, although it was also Easter Day so I've missed out there. Much of the late 15th century was a bloody tussle between two warring dynasties, the Houses of Lancaster and York, and the Battle of Barnet was the key moment when the white rose fi ..read more

It's a lovely day in the capital so I hope you're out enjoying the unseasonable warmth rather than wasting your time reading today's post. That's because it's about journeys through consecutively numbered postcode districts, an issue of no practical use whatsoever. Here's an approximate schematic of the postcode districts in central London. WC1 and WC2 cover the West End and EC1-EC4 are essentially the City. WC: The dividing line between WC1 and WC2 roughly follows the alignment of New Oxford Street and High Holborn. To walk from WC1 to WC2 is as simple as crossing the road outside Holbor ..read more

We're not due another tube map until August when the Overground lines get their own names. There's no point replacing paper maps and posters on platforms until then. But the online map on the TfL website is another matter and is often updated between print runs to reflect the latest changes. Indeed a new tube map pdf slipped out unheralded at the end of March and something marvellous has happened. Two daggers have been culled. This is how the tangle of orange spaghetti in the Hackney area looked before. It's been like this since the lines out of Liverpool Street joined the Overground in 20 ..read more

While I was in Enfield, heading away from the power station, I decided to depart across Sewardstone Marsh. Why exit the dull way when you can cross the Lea and walk through a minor Essex village? The riverside path passed nosey ponies and a pumping station and crossed three footbridges of various ages. And halfway across the third of these, which is the Cattlegate Footbridge, I realised I was exiting Greater London somewhere I'd never exited the capital before. So I wondered how many ways there are to exit the capital, how many paths and tracks and roads and railways in total around the per ..read more