11 February 2020
It’s a chilly day in London - with a biting wind that turns a theoretical temperature of +4⁰C into a “feels like” reading of minus one. For our walk today we make sure we steer well clear of routes along the Thames, which would result in a “feels like” reading of Captain Oates’ final stroll. Far better to opt for a sheltered route in a built-up area - in this case, Stephen Millar’s Paddington & Marylebone walk in Volume Three of his excellent London’s Hidden Walks*, jam-packed as usual with numbered reference points (52 on this route alone, which zigzags its way from Little Venice in the north down to Hyde Park in the south, then northwards again to Paddington Station).
We emerge from Warwick Avenue tube station after an unusually efficient journey. Jayne is sure there's a song called Warwick Avenue - and as usual, she’s right, it was a big hit for Duffy in 2009:
When I get to Warwick Avenue
We'll spend an hour but no more than two
Our only chance to speak once more
I showed you the answers, now here's the door.
This doesn’t sound like the best omen for the walk ahead of us, especially so close to Valentine’s Day. Watching the video back later on Vevo, Duffy doesn’t seem too keen on taking the actual tube to her rendezvous at a tube station, as the whole song is shot in the back of a London taxi. She also can’t sing the line “You hurt me bad but I won't shed a tear” without, er, shedding a tear - which makes her eyeliner run down her face, leaving a thick black line of goo, lovely. In short, the song is good but the video's a bit rubbish. Meanwhile Duffy herself seems to have disappeared without trace, maybe still stuck in traffic in the back of her taxi. [Update 25 Feb: This didn’t age well, as Duffy has since announced the real reason, which is a sad and distressing one. Sorry, Duffy]
Talking of taxis, Warwick Avenue boasts one of only 13 remaining cabmen’s shelters, originally built by philanthropists in the late 19th century to provide London’s cabbies with a dedicated place to get a warm meal and drink during their shift (rather than just ending up in the nearest pub). But the station is mainly known, at least by us, as being the nearest to Little Venice. This is a very picturesque area which forms the junction of the Grand Union Canal and the entrance to the Regent’s Canal, which leads from here past Regent’s Park, through Camden Lock, behind King’s Cross and down to Limehouse (a nice towpath walk in its own right, which we will no doubt repeat soon). It’s uncertain who originally coined the name “Little Venice”, with Lord Byron, the poet Robert Browning and Browning’s wife all in with a shout due to their Italian connections. This is also the area where many of London’s houseboats are moored, including one famously owned by the Virgin entrepreneur Richard Branson. There are also floating restaurants and the colourfully decorated Puppet Theatre Barge, not forgetting a hidden gem we stumbled across on our way to the water - the stunning Clifton Nursery (garden centre) nestled between the tall houses on Clifton Villas.
The route takes us downstream towards Paddington Basin, an extension of the Grand Union Canal which runs for 137 miles from Birmingham to London but originally terminated further west at Brentford. As last week, we pass - not once but twice - under the sprawling and noisy Westway, the arterial road leading from Central London towards the M40 and M25 motorways. As Millar notes, this was hugely controversial at the time (it opened in 1970), as it cut a swathe through established residential areas, resulting in the compulsory purchase of many private homes by the authorities. 50 years on, one can only imagine the upheaval and distress this must have caused - equally, it’s hard to conceive of London’s traffic system functioning without it. These days the most topical parallel is of course HS2, due to be given the green light - at least in part - during our walk today. When I was growing up, there was a similar project in our part of South East London - the Rochester Way Relief Road. One by one, all the properties on its proposed path were ruthlessly torn down - except for one lone house whose owner steadfastly refused to budge. The road was built, so I assume he lost his battle in the end. Here, Sean Henry’s life-size Walking Man and Standing Man sculptures also look distinctly unimpressed by their polluted lives below the flyover.
Moving on, we reach the church of St. Mary’s Paddington and are mightily confused that our guide Mr Millar appears to mix up the old churchyard, now a large park, with Paddington Green, a smaller enclosure near the main road. We spend many happy minutes looking for landmarks in one that turn out to be in the other. For a while the spirit of Duffy threatens to disrupt our marital harmony, but we eventually break free from this vicious cycle of doom, lured by the dubious promise of the “extremely ugly” Paddington Green police station. Clearly, someone in authority had the same opinion, as it has recently been closed down and is now a building site. This prepares us well for yet another encounter with the Westway at Marylebone Flyover, followed by a trek southwards down the traffic-choked Edgware Road, home to London’s Arabic community and also known as “Little Beirut” (I’m not selling this very well, am I?).
Things take a turn for the better when we leave the main road and enter the side-streets of Marylebone, named after the parish church of St. Mary’s that stood by the Tyburn river (or bourne). Over time, St. Mary at the Bourne was progressively mangled by Londoners’ pronunciation into today’s shortened version, innit? This year is the 200th anniversary of the Cato Street Conspiracy, a plot to assassinate the whole Cabinet while they met at nearby Grosvenor Square amid rising popular discontent caused by the Napoleonic Wars and the Industrial Revolution. A blue plaque on Cato Street commemorates the house where they planned this attack, which was only foiled when the group was infiltrated by a government agent who was able to tip off the authorities just in time. Five of the gang were put to death at Newgate Prison (hanged, then decapitated just to be on the safe side) and another five were deported - presumably to Australia, where they became the forebears of the national cricket team (this last bit may not be true).
We pass by Seymour Leisure Centre, not a modern gym complex but one of the original public bath-houses aimed at inner city residents who didn’t have access to running water at home, and soon we are at St. Mary’s Church on Bryanston Square. I know she’s a popular saint but you’d think there might have been a bit more originality amongst church-namers back in the day. By now it’s time for a cheeky coffee and snack break at Boxcar Baker & Deli - but the filled croissant fails to arrive and the staff seem unable to work out how to refund us (top tip: just reach into the till and give us the £4.50 in cash, that would be fine). This is a shame, as it seems to be a quirky local café with a Swedish flair. This theme continues (the Swedish embassy is just around the corner) as we make the obligatory purchase of some Bilar, the popular sweets shaped like motor cars, at the neighbouring Totally Swedish shop.
Some genuine blue plaque excitement now awaits us in Montagu Square. This isn’t for some obscure 19th century discoverer of a little known metal (sorry, thallium bloke from Notting Hill) but a musical icon - John Lennon lived at number 34 in 1968. And the Beatles legacy doesn’t end there - the leaseholder at the time was not Lennon but Ringo Starr, who also lived there from 1965, while Paul McCartney also used the house for recording purposes. Aside from the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix lived there in 1967 as did Yoko Ono with Lennon in 1968 (it was here that the couple were famously photographed naked). Yet it’s only Lennon who gets the blue plaque - a bit ironic as it was his conviction for cannabis possession following a police raid that forced Starr to give up the lease.
Across the Edgware Road again, still lined with Arabic shops and restaurants at its very southern tip, and we’re now in the genteel splendour of Connaught Square, home to many famous residents over the years, including Tony Blair who moved here after quitting office as prime minister. We’re amused to see a very smart car with the registration “IRAO” parked close to his house at No. 29, which is either a coincidence or top trolling (yes, I know the last letter isn't actually a "Q"). The square is very close to Marble Arch and the original site of the Tyburn Tree gallows. Our route continues westwards along busy Bayswater Road, which borders Hyde Park, passing Tyburn Convent and the Oranjehaven, originally a club founded by Dutch refugees from the German occupation during World War II. A well-wisher has thoughtfully left some orange peel on the pavement outside, a silent tribute to their struggle.
Turning off the main road we find ourselves in Albion Street, with its plethora of blue plaques and attractive residential mews. This takes us down memory lane as our friends Jean and Rich used to host some epic parties during the mid-nineties at their house on Albion Close. That's not to mention the time they saved us from hypothermia when far too skimpily dressed for a September evening attending Proms in the Park. Happy memories, guys, when are you moving back to London? Some extra security has been added in the meantime, so today we can’t do more than peek through the railings at the entrance to the mews. Around the next corner, we are promised one of the oldest and most regal tailors’ shops in London, Kashket & Partners, which traces its origins back to 1655, but sadly it has disappeared since Millar’s guide was published in 2014 (not terminally though, it has just relocated out to Tottenham). But we are fascinated by Millar’s histories of the Bayswater area, formerly known as Tyburnia, especially the extraordinary rate of house-building between 1800 and 1850 which transformed this part of Paddington from a small hamlet to the attractive residential area it still is today.
From here, it’s only a short distance to Paddington station, but the walk still bobs here and there to show us yet more noteworthy sights, including St. John’s Church. This is not only a welcome break from St. Mary but also where Richard Branson lived in the crypt while running the magazine Student. In a close parallel to last week’s tale of Oz in Notting Hill, Branson was convicted and fined in 1969 for having the audacity to publish advertisements for venereal disease treatments. This was clearly a difficult time to be a progressive publisher, although Branson did later receive an apology when the law was changed. Today the church is only visible behind the massed ranks of white builders’ vans using its car park, turning the otherwise genteel Hyde Park Crescent into a bit of an eyesore. Our final port of call is the new development at Paddington Basin, end-point of the Grand Union Canal and now home to a blend of modern office blocks and restaurants. It looks a bit soulless at the back end of a winter lunch-hour, but we are desperate by now after the earlier croissant disaster, so make an immediate beeline for the Lockhouse. This week we strike lucky as they offer an innovative selection of mains and sourdough sandwiches. We opt to share a jerk chicken flatbread (with jalapeno, £11.50) and a lock club melt (chicken, bacon, egg, mayonnaise, £10), washed down with one of our lunchtime favourites, Beavertown Neck Oil (come to think of it, I'm not averse to it in the evenings either). The food is tasty and plentiful, a marked contrast to last week's experience - highly recommended!
Summary: We deliberately chose a longer walk today, chiefly to ward off the cold - this one was around six and a half miles, so good for three hours walking, excluding breaks, and around 18,000 steps. As mentioned, there are a few main roads and busy crossings involved, but the more residential parts more than made up for this as they were packed solid with history and other points of interest (I haven’t even covered the half of it, which is probably just as well as we'd be here all night). I wouldn't say it was the most picturesque walk ever in parts, but it certainly lived up to author Stephen Millar’s “hidden walks” billing as there was so much we didn’t know about - or simply didn’t know was even there, lurking just off the beaten track. That, for us, continues to be the beauty of walking in central London, whatever the weather.
*Acknowledgements: Richard and Jayne were following Stephen Millar’s “London’s Hidden Walks: Walk, Explore. Discover…”, Volume 3 - Paddington & Marylebone Walk, pp 96-127, 2014 edition published by Metro Publications Ltd. Photography by Jayne Burton (thanks!)
