Ways to Walk in London E-Book

Alice Stevenson

• Herausgeber: September Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

An inspiring collection of walks, notes and artworks, revealing London's multiple layers and different moods. Alice Stevenson is a Londoner who neither drives, runs nor cycles. Instead she walks, navigating the city's parks, pavements and paths daily, in all weathers. As the miles have mounted so too has Alice's knowledge of the city - the thoroughfares and the alleyways, the beauty spots and the forgotten corners. She is a unique guide with a unique eye. Whether you are walking with a purpose or walking to escape, or simply looking for new ways to appreciate the city, Ways to Walk in London is a revelation. Including walks above-ground and below-ground, waterways, pathways and the Pedway, Alice also opens our eyes to London's hidden places and pasts. Please note this is a fixed-format ebook with colour images and may not be well-suited for older e-readers.

Leseprobe

WAYS TO WALK IN LONDON

ways to walk in

london

hidden places and new perspectives

text and illustrations by

alice stevenson

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

First published in 2015 by September Publishing

Text and illustration copyright © 2015 Alice Stevenson

The right of Alice Stevenson to be identified as the authorof this work has been asserted by her in accordance withthe Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmittedin any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the priorpermission of the copyright holder.

A copy of this book has been given to the British Library.

Book design by Claudia Doms

Printed in China on paper from responsibly managed,sustainable sources by Everbest Printing Co Ltd.

ISBN 978-1-910463-02-4

eISBN 978-1-910463-05-5

September Publishing

www.septemberpublishing.org

To my parents, Caroline and Michael Stevenson,for teaching me the value of good walks and good books.

CONTENTS

Borough and closest Tube or train station are listed beneath.

 Introduction111St Thomas’s Graveyard14 Hackney, Hackney Central 2Regent’s Canal16 Hackney, Cambridge Heath 3Parkland Walk20 Haringey, Finsbury Park 4Looking Down26 Hackney, Cambridge Heath 5Heartbroken30 Camden, Kentish Town 6Teddington34 Richmond upon Thames, Teddington 7Canary Wharf38 Tower Hamlets, Canary Wharf 8Brompton Cemetery42 Kensington & Chelsea, Earl’s Court 9Woolwich48 Greenwich, Woolwich Arsenal 10Richmond Park52 Richmond upon Thames, Richmond 11Pub Walk56 Islington, Angel 12Mist60 Hackney, Hackney Central 13Deptford64 Lewisham, Deptford 14Rain68 Hackney, Hackney Central 15Regent’s Park70 Camden, Camden Town 

16Forest Hill74 Lewisham, Forest Hill 17Walking a Line in Chelsea80 Hammersmith & Fulham, Fulham Broadway 18Hendon86 Barnet, Hendon Central 19Shadwell Basin90 Tower Hamlets, Whitechapel 20Bookshops96 Hackney, London Fields 21A–Z102 Hounslow, Hounslow East 22Hampstead Garden Suburb108 Barnet, East Finchley 23Garden Squares112 Camden, Russell Square 24Kensal Green Cemetery116 Kensington & Chelsea, Kensal Green 25Windows and Walls122 Hackney, Hackney Central 26Lincoln’s Inn126 City of London, Temple 27Portobello Road130 Kensington & Chelsea, Notting Hill 28Pedway134 City of London, Aldgate 29Arbrook Common140 Surrey, Claygate 30The Post Office Walk144 City of London, Farringdon 31Hyde Park146 Westminster, Marble Arch 32Night Walk152 Hackney, Hackney Central  Acknowledgements157

INTRODUCTION

Walking has been an important part of my life for as long as I can recall. Whether specifically heading off for a walk or as a way of getting to a destination, it is an activity that both calms and inspires me, and alters my perception of the world.

Most of the walks in this book took place be-tween November 2013 and July 2014, during which we negotiated the wettest winter on record. I chose my routes a number of ways, some almost inciden-tally, haphazardly wandering and getting lost, while for others I followed particular paths.

London and I have always had a strange re-lationship. I regularly dream of escape and feel overwhelmed by its unforgiving, grey vastness. But making a book about walking in London meant that I would not just be responding to memories. Instead, walking would be making them, as part of the crea-tion of the book, plotting lines across the city as I investigated my complex relationship with it.

On each walk my inner world, the physical surroundings and, if with a companion, our relat-ionship, combined with the motion of putting one foot in front of the other, created a unique expe-rience and a subsequent memory. And through these walks, I found my sense of separateness from my surroundings gradually diminish, and my home town has become as rich and atmospheric as if I were experiencing it for the first time.

I have a fairly brisk pace and my focus shifts  between observing the details of my surroundings to  turning inwards to my own thoughts. As an illustrator  

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and artist, my work has always been largely — and unintentionally — based on observations of my sur-roundings with an abstract reinterpretation. I always seem to be seeking to capture atmospheres and memories. In creating this book, I set about doing this more purposefully, using the rich visual memories that walking creates as my starting point. The process varied from walk to walk. After some walks a clear image of what I needed to create would appear in my mind, whereas for others I’d sit down in my studio with recollections and photographs, and through a process of trial and error I’d eventually find the appropriate visual language with which to capture the experience.

This book is partly a personal travelogue. However it is also intended to be an unofficial guide to walking in London, these walks are starting-off points for you to have your own unique experiences amongst its lesser-known corners. I also hope for it to be an inspiration to any Londoner, visitor to Lon-don, or city dwellers anywhere, to see the potential for wonder and adventure available to all – just by stepping out of our front door with an enquiring mind and putting one foot in front the other.

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ST THOMAS’S GRAVEYARD

fromMorning LanetoVyner StreetviaSt Thomas’s Recreation Ground

Paragon Road is the least inspiring but most straightforward route to my studio. It’s a typical Hackney mix; tower blocks, a modern purpose-built school and elegant Victorian houses. It’s raining gently and I am trying to find something of interest or beauty. It’s not too hard to engage. There are the twisting, bare trees in the Trelawney Estate lawn and Middle Eastern decorative ele-ments on the restored houses.

It’s more challenging on Mare Street. It’s a charmless, noisy road. But my attention is grabbed at St Thomas’s Square by a diseased young beech, white marks on its bark. There is also an iron gate by a church I’ve barely registered before. It’s St John the Theologian, a Greek Orthodox church, which was built as a Catholic Apostolic church in 1873.

The gate’s open and I wander  between walls lined with bushes and  topped with spikes. The path opens into  a large, square churchyard, with a pink,  

mock Tudor hut in the middle, which reminds me of the similar gardener’s hut in Soho Square. It’s surrounded by overgrown grass. The gravestones are flattened up against the walls and each other, often hidden by overgrown spiky bushes and ivy. Dead ivy and brambles cover the walls, looking like veins on the brickwork. Behind one wall, the backs of Victorian houses loom up. I like this place, it feels secret and hidden, unlike the rest of this borough.

This is in fact St Thomas’s Recre-ation Ground, the former burial ground of a long gone, seventeenth-century Nonconformist chapel. It was laid out as a public garden the decade after St John’s was built, which is why the headstones, although not the tombs, have been moved. As I leave, the sun comes out. Reflected trees shine up from precise puddles and there are multicoloured cut-out paper snow-flakes in a frosted school window.

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