Special Post: Tower Hill

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station“. This post in a radical departure for this series contains a couple of photographs of old auction lots which happen to be of relevance to the subject matter.

BACK AND FORTH

A station opened on the present site in 1882, was closed in 1884 in favour of a new site at Mark Lane and then in 1967 the old site was reopened under the present name Tower Hill. I am going to mention two significant sites served by this station before talking about its other connections…

THE TOWER OF LONDON

Started in the reign of William the Conqueror and augmented consistently thereafter, this is one of the most famous sites in London. One of the more spectacular commemorations of World War 1 during the centenary year was the ceramic poppy display. One of these poppies, boxed and with a picture of the whole display as background, is Lot 1 in the Great Centenary Charity Auction. Although I do nat have any photographs of the Tower, I do have the complete gallery for this medallion which went under the hammer in James and Sons March auction…

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TOWER BRIDGE

The other site I mention here is Tower Bridge, most distinctive of all the bridges across the river Thames. If you manage to be there when this bridge opens up to let a boat through you will not forget the experience. Again I provide a picture in the form of an old auction lot. This plaque was part of a lot that went un der the hammer in February…

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FENCHURCH STREET STATION

The only square on the London Monopoly board to contain all five vowels, and the only one of London’s main line railway terminals whose name does not appear on the London Underground map, Fenchurch Street is just across the road from Tower Hill. Trains from this station go to Tilbury, Southend and Shoeburyness.

THE DOCKLANDS LIGHT RAILWAY

Tower Gateway, just across the road from our title station, was one of the original termini of the Docklands Light Railway when that network first opened. In those days, it was very much smaller than it now is, with the other northern terminus at Stratford and the only other terminus at Island Gardens. Until the southward extension to Lewisham was built one could visit Greenwich by travelling to the Island Gardens terminus, crossing the Thames by means of the foot tunnel and then tarvel back from Greenwich Station.

A FINAL WORD AND SOME MAP PICTURES

I hope that you have enjoyed this post and will be inspired to share it. I end with these pictures…

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A Classic Game of Cricket

INTRODUCTION

As well as my title piece, which refers to yesterday’s fourth ODI between England and New Zealand I have some links to share and some photographs from today at work. I hope you enjoy it all and will be encouraged to share.

TRENT BRIDGE THRILLER

Although in the end this cannot be described as a close game, since England won by seven wickets with almost six overs to spare, the word thriller is nevertheless well merited – it was one of the best games of cricket I have ever been priveleged to see or hear.

A New Zealand total of 349 appeared to present England with a very serious challenge, especially given that the previous biggest successful run chase by an Engalnd team in one day international was 306 to beat Pakistan in Karachi. However, the new (this series) opening pair of Jason Roy and Alex Hales launched a blitzkrieg that yielded 97 off the first ten overs of the reply. After both openers were out in a short space of time Joe Root and Eoin Morgan then shared an all-comers record for a third wicket partnership in an ODI at Trent Bridge of 198 before Morgan holed out just after completing an extraordinary hundred. Then, with the game already well and truly in England’s grasp Ben Stokes came in and provided some late fireworks to put yet more gloss on an already sparkling victory.

This result leaves the series level at two matches all, and given the cricket both sides have produced and the spirit in which the series has been contested I for one would say that the appropriate result for the final match up at Durham would be a tie, as neither side deserves to lose this amazing series.

What makes this series all the more remarkable is of course that only a few months ago English ODI stocks were at all time low, following a performance in the world cup that can only described as atrocious (with all due disrespect to the abysmal 1996 ‘effort’ surely the worst ever world cup for an England team).

LINKS

Just the two links today…

1)A petition via change.org calling on the Chinese government to put a stop to the Yulin Dog Meat Festival.

2)notesfromthenorth provides a detailed analysis of Britain’s Social Security spending to counter right wing myths.

PHOTOGRAPHS

All of the pictures with which I end this post are of items going under the hammer on Wednesday. A full listing can be viewed at the-saleroom.com…

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Special Post: Farringdon

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to another installment in my series “London Station by Station“. I hope that you will enjoy it and be inspired to sahre.

FARRINGDON

The current Farringdon station opened in 1865, when the Metropolitan Railway (as it then was) expanded eastward for the first time from the old terminus just to the south of here at Farringdon Street (it had already reached west to Hammersmtih in 1864). As the colours of the heading indicate it is currently served by the Hammersmith and City, Circle and Metropolitan lines. There is also an overground station served by Thameslink.

I have a couple of shots from an old A-Z to show the area at surface level…

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For three months in 1997 I worked (for experience plus travel expenses) at Interpretations, based in Bakers Yard, the near the junction of Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue, the first job I ever had.

Also, tying in with two of my interests (real ale and English literature), just to the north of this junction is a pub called the Betsey Trotwood, which I would recommend anyone to visit.

Just south of here is City Thameslink, a train station with exceptionally long platforms, owing to the fact that it was created by amalgamating two old stations, Holborn Viaduct and Ludgate Hill into one.

I end but setting this historic station in context with the aid of the Diagrammatic History…

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A Sharing Post

INTRODUCTION

Although I have been out and about today, and have some good pictures which will feature somewhere, this post is going to be almost entirely given over sharing stuff from other people, as I have some fantastic links and a couple of decent infographics.

VOX POLITICAL AND A VERY IMPORTANT FOI REQUEST

There are a number of links in this subsection, which relates to a long running campaign by Mike Sivier of Vox Political. As well as some stuff from Mike himself, I have a link to a piece about the MP for Newcastle, who has weighed in on our side, and a very important blog post from Jayne Linney which I have already shared with my twitter followers. I hope you will visit all the links below:

1)The Petition – please sign and or share.

2)Vox Political first post – on Downing Street and the deleted emails

3)Vox Political 2nd Post – on DWP continuing dishonesty.

4)Newcastle MP weighs in our side.

5)Jayne Linney blog post “Truth Seekers“.

AUTISM

Two excellent pieces in this section, firstly one of the finest explanations of Asperger’s Syndrome (my particular form of autism) that I have so far come across, courtesy of Durham Regional Autism Services. The second link in this section is to an old favourite, Autism Mom, and her latest post on visiting these shores with the Navigator.

THE ABI LONGFELLOW CASE

Two links here, a Mirror article and a petition:

1)Read the latest article about this case.

2)View, sign and share the petition.

THE LAST FEW LINKS

I have three more links to share with you. First, courtesy of Take Part Daily, a story about the method used by inhabitants of one tiny island to tackle illegal fishing in their protected waters. Second, a piece in the Independent about the disgraceful treatment of Raif Badawi. The links section began with Mike Sivier, and we finish by coming full circle, to his piece about Tories deeming it clever to back Corbyn for Labour Leader.

INFOGRAPHICS

First up in this section is a graphic representation of TTIP…

TTIP

My other infographic, saved on my computer as “Sprawl-mart” concerns a certain US Supermarket and tax havens where it has shell companies but no stores…

Sprawl-mart

ANOTHER EVENT AT KING’S LYNN LIBRARY

Details of an upcoming event at my local library in pictorial form…

SOME PHOTOS FROM TODAY AND A CLOSING STATEMENT

I hope that you have enjoyed this post, and that you will be encouraged to share it. I finish with a selection of today’s pictures…

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Special Post: Alperton

INTRODUCTION

Welcome the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station” I hope you will enjoy this post and be inspired to share it.

ALPERTON: A MINOR STATION WITH A MAJOR QUIRK

Alperton was originally opened in 1903 as a District Line station, but since October 1933 has been served only by the Piccadilly line. The transfer of services on this branch occurred in two phases as shown in the following extract from the Diagrammatic History…

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Of course, typically, this important paragraph straddles a fold on the map, as you can see.

A legacy of the period of joint service is that all stations on this branch have platforms of a compromise height between that of tube and surface stock.

We come now the the sole reason for this very brief post – the quirk referred to in the title. Escalators can be found all over London Underground, but those at Alperton are there for an unusual reason on this network: to carry passengers up from street level to the platforms.

A couple of pics to finish…

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Photography and Scanning

INTRODUCTION

I do not have a lot of links or infographics to share, but my title piece will be accompanied by plenty of pictures. I hope that you all enjoy this post and will be inspired to sahre it.

NEAR MIRACULOUS CATCH UP OPERATION

Because of all the fuss over the Great Charity Centenary Auction work for James and Sons own June auction was somewaht delayed. However, unlikely as it seemed only a few days ago, the catalogue for this auction will be back from the printers by the end of Thursday, and we should be up online at the-saleroom by not long after that as well.

I was working with the scanner and the camera all day today. An example of scanner work is this collection of militaria (nine lots in total, which I show as the original scan, and then the individual images I extracted from it…

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Another set of images that I used the scanner for were these very old coins…

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Also, as mentioned, I took photographs of a wide variety of items, some of which are below…

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This image of a set of gold proof coins from Jersey was obtained with the scanner.

A LINK AND AN INFOGRAPHIC

I am treating these together, asthere is only one fo each. The link is to one of Vox Political’s recent offerings. The blog post ends with the feature image, this infographic courtesy of Jon Swindon..

Special Post: Hainault

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest post in my “London Station by Station” series. These posts do not contain anything other than the title piece, and any links and pictures relate exclusively to that theme, as is not the case with my regular posts.

A BELGIAN PROVINCE AND AN OUTPOST OF LONDON UNDERGROUND

Hainault was important duchy in what is now Belgium in 14th century, although the modern province has subsequently lost the l and is now called Hainaut. The connection to this country dates from that same period, when Phillippa of Hainault, daughter of the then duke married Edward III. For more on this, I have a link to a short academic article.

As with the rest of the eastern end of the Central line, Hainault was originally served by the Great Eastern Railway before being transferred to London Underground in 1948. Hainault gives it name to the Hainault Loop, which the following extract from the diagrammatic history shows…

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For many years, Hainault was a terminus station, with the northern segment of the loop being run by a shuttle service, but nowadays trains taking the loop run all the way round it to Woodford.

At one time the southern part of the Hainault loop was going to form an eastern extension to a planned Chelsea-Hackney line, but that line never got beyond the planning stage, and I have not heard it mentioned in the last couple of decades. This 1994 speculative map from Ken Garland’s “Mr Beck’s Underground Map” shows the plan along with one or two other plans of the time, some of which did come to fruition (though by no means all)…

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As for the place itself, the only point of interest as that there is a country park, which would probably provide a decent walk if you were so minded.

I hope that you have enjoyed this post and that you will be encouraged to share it, and I leave you with one last picture…

Operation Catch Up

INTRODUCTION

As well as my title piece I have some photos which connect to that and some cracking links to share with you. Read, enjoy and please share…

OPERATION CATCH UP

The combination of two auctions happening in the space of four days and a degree of failure on the organsiation front has made things somewhat hectic of late. However, after a full day imaging for our June auction today, I believe that we will be able to give our online viewers a week to look at the items that will be going under the hammer, which did not look likely at one point. Today’s imaging has been very varied, including some lovely Hornby toys (Hornby for the uninitiated are THE name when it comes to railway themed toys and models). There were also some decent stamp lots and some interesting militaria. To end this section here are some pictorial highlights…

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LINKS

Here as promised are those links, starting with a fistful on the subject of…

RELIGION

My first three links are all related to the same organisation:

1)Atheist Republic home

2)Atheist Republic blogs

3)Atheist Republic’s brief explanation of atheism.

Patheos, so often a source of good material have done it again, this time with a piece about Christian extremist opposition to higher education.

A CHANCE TO BRING A VILE CRIMINAL TO JUSTICE

A single link, being given a subsection to itself. This is a petition being run by Avaaz to ensure that the South African government does the right thing and takes the opportunity to arrest and incarcerate former Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir

SCIENCE AND MUSIC

An unusual juxtaposition, but both my science related pieces are concerned with planets, and there is a very well known piece of music called The Planets, so I considered it acceptable on this occasion. The music related link is to a piece by Charlotte Hoather about Madama Butterfly, in a production of which she will soon be appearing. My two planets themed pieces both come from Cosmos Up:

1)Juxtaposition of Jupiter and Venus

2)A possible preponderance of Neptune sized planets in our galaxy.

A FINAL SELECTION

Three more links, starting with this from Jayne Linney.

Stop Homophobia have collected some superb responses to hate mail.

Last but most definitely not least is this piece from network autism about gender dysphoria and autism.

Special Post: Euston and Euston Square

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station“. I am treating these two together because they are so close to one another that it makes no sense to split them up.

EUSTON AND EUSTON SQUARE

Euston Square, served nowadays by the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines is one of the 1863 originals, and as with Baker Street has been restored to look as it would have done when first opened. The City and South London Railway station at Euston was opened on May 12th 1907 and the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway on June 22nd 1907. These two together are now the Northern line, and occupy four platforms here – although widely separated – to change between the two branches you would be well advised to continue northwards to Camden Town where the interchange is cross-platform. The Victoria line station opened on December 1st 1968.

The southbound platform on the Bank branch of the Northern line is very wide at this station because when it was opened as the City and South London Railway station there were two tracks either side of an island platform (an arrangement still in evidence at Clapham Common and Clapham North), and the extra width of that platform comes from the reorginastion when this arrangement was deemed unsuitable for such a busy station.

INTRODUCING THE RAILWAY DETECTIVE

Euston was the first of London’s railway terminals to open, serving the London and North Western Railway, and it was on that route that Edward Marston’s greatest creation, The Railway Detective (a.k.a Inspector Robert Colbeck) investigated the case that first earned him that title (and introduced him to his future wife). These stories are set thus far) in the 1850s, before the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in 1863, but I could see Colbeck still being in business when that momentous event occurs. He would undoubtedly embrace the underground railway wholeheartedly, although his colleague Sergeant Leeming would take some persuading of its virtues!

CONCLUSION AND PICS

I hope that you have enjoyed this post and will be inspired to share it. Here are a couple of pictures to finish…

Special Post: Hammersmith

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station“. Whereas my regular posts contain links, photographs and sometimes infographics as well as the title piece, these posts contain no links, no infographics and only pictures that relate directly to the matter in hand.

HAMMERSMITH

The colours of the title are those of the modern lines that serve the station. The Hammersmith and City line, in the days when it was the original Metropolitan Railway reached Hammersmith in 1864, although the current station for that line was opened four years later in 1868. From 1877 to 1906 a viaduct diverging from the current line at Goldhawk Road and having a station called Hammersmith Grove Road connected to the District at Ravenscourt Park and thence to Richmond. The District line station at Hammersmith opened in 1874, and it was the original western terminus of the Piccadilly line in 1906.

The station which now serves the District and Piccadilly lines was completely redesigned a few years back, although the track layout remains the same – District line tracks on the outside, Piccadilly line tracks in the centre. Except for occasional services which also stop at Turnham Green, where the Richmond branch of the District diverges from the Ealing branch, Piccadilly trains run non-stop between Hammersmith and Acton Town. Just west of Hammersmith on the District and Piccadilly lines one can see the remains of the viaduct referred to in the opening paragraph.

Hammersmith is home to a major shopping centre (the reason for the redesign mentioned above) and also to the Lyric Theatre, at which I saw several good plays.

Here are a couple of pictures to conclude the post…

A close up of the key area for this post.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and I encourage you to share it!

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