The Number 25 Route

Thursday 7 March 2019

When we last travelled the 25, it began (or ended) at John Lewis in Oxford Street. Now its start point is said to be City Thameslink station, but is actually Holborn Circus, really quite a way from that station. Ah, the wonders of the TfL website.

Still we headed off, past several of the little blue markers for vanished buildings: Newgate prison, Christ's Hospital and Greyfriars' Monastery (though this one was destroyed by Henry VIII and not later)

The Christchurch Greyfriars garden was embellished with a work of art depicting, perhaps, scholars on the way to the school which once existed here.  But I haven't found anything about it on the web.

The area is still rich in churches, and once we had passed close to St Paul's, we came to St Mary le Bow, from where Bow bells still ring out, though the church is undergoing restoration.

Our journey through the City continued past the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange, with views of the Monument as well as some of the new buildings going up, causing us to wonder if the world really needs new offices.

The Offices of the Honourable East India Company, which controlled oriental trade from the Reign of Elizabeth I to the end of the eighteenth century, are long gone, but the pub round the corner is still there, and clearly doing good business among the modern traders.

The route carries on eastwards, past Aldgate Station and St Botolph's church to pass the Whitechapel Gallery, absolutely next door to the tube station, and also bearing a blue plaque to say that Isaac Rosenberg studied at the Gallery and lived nearby. The poet who 'pulled the parapet's poppy' and refers to a 'queer sardonic rat' might have achieved greater fame than just as a war poet had he lived beyond the age of 28.

We also passed the site of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which we were lucky enough to visit before it closed in March 2017, and then the splendid East London Mosque, with its attractive tile work.
Booth House, former HQ of the Salvation Army is empty, but the Blind Beggar Pub is still up and running, as is Queen Mary University, formerly a college of London University.

We've been impressed by the art work on the side, suggesting rather a remarkable curriculum, but the 21st century is more accurately reflected in the huge student blocks opposite.  We also passed a building with the name 'Spiegelhalter' written on it,  This was once a jewellers, but the family changed its name to Salter when anti-german feeling became a problem in 1914.




Crossing the Regent's Canal meant we knew we were at Mile End, and we went under the lovely green bridge to reach the site of the former St Clement's Hospital.  

Last time, it was about to be developed, and now it is being so.  We had remembered that it would be part of a community land trust, ensuring that it would provide homes for local people, but it is in fact mostly going to be privately owned.

Shortly afterwards, having passed two of Bow's many stations, we came to the Bow Bells pub with rather a good mural of a Pearly Prince on its wall.

Bow has a statue of Gladstone, as well as Bow Church, but what is most noticeable is the huge amount of new housing going up around here.  We were, of course, very close to the Olympic Park, and soon we were at Stratford Bus Station.

From there, but still going east, we passed the Old Town Hall, as well as the obelisk memorial to Samuel Gurney.  Linda thought he might have gone to Widdecombe Fair, but that was of course Peter Gurney. This person was a banker and philanthropist from Norfolk, whose fellow parishioners put this up (it's a drinking fountain, by the way) in 1861

We were also impressed that the Old Dispensary has survived, the more so as it was constructed in the mid 19th century out of ships' timbers.







Also remarkable was Manor Park's red brick Carnegie library, which is becoming a beautiful art and community space.  By now we really felt as if we were getting out of London, as we reached the valley of the River Roding, and saw a magnificent tree palm in somebody's garden.

And there ahead of us were the tall buildings of Ilford, so we had only to trundle round the edges of the town, passing the alms houses and chapel which are said to be the oldest buildings in the borough of Redbridge, to arrive at Hainault Street where thie trip ended.  It was 11.20, which means we had actually be slightly faster than the advertised route time.

It is a splendid route, passing many interesting buildings and taking passengers across a great swathe of East London:  parlticularly pleasurable on a sunny day.