please empty your brain below

The Bluebells I have seen so far this year seem to be very good this year.

I still prefer the title Crossrail to Elizabeth Line.
This has been a very good year for bluebells. Along the railway and tram tracks are usually the escapees from gardens. But,every now and then,a glimpse of a wooded area awash with the deep blue of native wild bluebells - wow!
A great blog post - thank you. We live a couple of miles away and adore the Abbey and the surrounding woods. You're spot on about the affordability of the area - SE2 is still quite down at heel, but the Victorian/Edwardian housing stock is perfect for refurbishment.
There's been an article in the Guardian this week about a couple of *garages* in Abbey Wood that have been converted into one bedroom flats and which were advertised for £700 and £850 a month.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/06/for-rent-1-bedroom-london-garage-flat-850-per-month-london-property
I guess in London that counts as affordable these days, sigh, but it seems pretty grim to me.
I was pleasantly surprised by Abbey Wood when I went there when walking the Green Chain. It's good to hear the area around the Abbey is being improved.
Don't call it the Elizabeth Line!

Reading is further out from central London than abbey wood, surely?

dg writes: In 2018, when the first section of line opens, Abbey Wood will the the furthest station out. By the end of 2019, very much not so.
Geofftech, if DG doesn't call it the Elizabeth Line, then what is he going to call it ... it's "officially'" not Crossrail any longer so surely it's time to get used to calling it by either its official title or the colloquial Lizzie Line
I live a 2 min walk from Lesnes Abbey Woods, and it is truly glorious. We can't wait for everything to be finished. The lack of toilets is especially annoying.

Take a look at the bexley is bonkers blog for extremely biased, but detailed, updates on the woods.
Caz. What about the Dangleway?
Surely if we keep calling it Crossrail instead of that other name Crossrail will be even better known and the other name will fall out of use. Hopefully, at least.

I for one will always call it Crossrail

Another reason to travel to Abbey Wood station could be to visit the amazing Crossness Pumping Station via the occasional minibus service.
On the next day of the restored engine being in steam though (22nd May), it seems that Plumstead is the station from which to catch the minibus.
What a wonderful place to visit! I'd never believe this was London :)
@ Caz

The 'officals' can call things whatever they like. Just as 'people' decide what they'll call a rail line that goes across London...mmm CrossRail sounds apt.

The 'Gerkin' has a 'offical' name too...but I don't care what it is.

Most ancient mulberry trees do indeed date from the time of James I, as he sent mulberry-hawkers up and down the country trying to get a silk industry going. Unfortunately they were planting the tasty black mulberry, not the silkworms' favourite white mulberry, so it didn't work. There's an equally old tree at Charlton House.
Either call it Crossrail or Elizabeth line...not both. It that type of 'wishy-washy' approach that side-tracks (pun intended) people into commenting about the name. Though I'm guessing as the post was written one may have thought to avoid stating "a developer-led Elizabeth line-fuelled virus that can only spread" as that would sound wrong?
Elizabeth line is more tube-friendly but who actually cares? More to the point (for me anyway) is whether it will be counted as a tube line (the jubilee is most like crossrail/elizabeth line with PED's) or a rouge line on the tube maps (like the DLR and the dangleway).
Crossrail is still the name of the construction company so it is perfectly in order to refer to the construction as Crossrail.

Have you noticed how TfL press releases have to tread carefully and resort to "which will become the Elizabeth line when it opens in 2018" sort of thing which totally ruins the flow?

I should probably not bother to visit places, and simply stay at home and write a few contentious sentences instead.
You should definetely write comments more in purple, that would be fun, yes. I dunno, how much spare time do you have on your hands these days?

Caz, others have said it but just because it's officially called something doesn't mean that the general public will fall in line and call it that.

My main issue is that it's 'line', when it should be Rail. Don't call it a line because it's not a tube line, it's something new. If you want to give it a royal name, then sure - call it Elizabeth Rail, but not. 'Line'. Ridiculous name.

Ps. Btw DG, we are all here for trains, and not bluebells. Sorry if this is news to you.

Unless.... You want to go and visit the Bluebell Railway, that is? We'd be all over that.

No, when I went to the Bluebell Railway, that only got 13 comments. This is already over 20.

If you are all here for trains, I shall probably give up.

@ DG

Please chill out a bit ! Does it really matter if the comments aren't exactly 100.0000% 'pure' on any given topic?

As long as people aren't trolling (fortunately there don't seem to be many on this blog), a bit of meandering adds interest, rather like a walk can be more interesting if one wanders off the main highway when some unexpected gem catches one's eye. It can't be much fun being a horse forced to wear blinkers - the result is tunnel vision.

Please welcome comments in the spirit that they are intended. Your blog is very interesting and the comments form an integral part. It would be a great shame if over-zealous moderation resulted in fewer comments and / or less diversity.

Don't judge by the number of comments. I enjoyed the piece - especially the tantilising last sentence of the first paragraph.

This is all explained by C. Northcote Parkinson after whom a famous law was named. Basically we can't think of anything intelligent to add about the Abbey or bluebells so we talk about what we can talk about. Whether that is intelligent or not is another matter.

Like I often do when reading your articles, I have made a mental note to visit someday when I have a Freedom Pass and time on my hands.

Heavens, I don't expect 'pure' comments.

And I recognise that only a small fraction of my readers would have anything to say about Abbey Wood and its environs, or even bluebells.

But when the majority of a day's comments are responding to a throwaway mention in the first comment, rather than anything specifically related to the original post, and all of this on a conversational topic we've covered in depth before, back when it was actually relevant, I do sit here and question whether I'm wasting my time.

@ DG

The fact that people don't always comment 'Wow, great photos and another great DG blog post, as usual' is probably because

(a) We're just spoilt: we expect our daily fix and take it all for granted (yes, I know we shouldn't, but such are the problems of success)

(b) Comments tend to be on more controversial topics

(c) Repeatedly saying 'Wow, great photos and another great DG blog post today, as usual' would doubtless contravene the dreaded Rule (5a) or whatever

You're certainly NOT wasting your time: every day brings something interesting and it's required reading. It's just that sometimes there's nothing with which to disagree. We can't clap, so perhaps the blog needs a 'Like' or 'Upvote' system as well as Comments !

I'm not after applause, nor do I expect comments when there's nothing to say.

This isn't about numbers, merely an observation on protracted irrelevance.

I like bluebells...but I don't think I will go all the way to Abbey Wood to see them.

As for the comments about the comments ...get a grip people, life is too short
I will definitely go to the woods some time. And I don't really care what crossrail is called. You're not wasting your time, DG.
As far as I'm concerned, you can drop the gricey train stuff altogether and focus on the travelogues.

I may be in a minority here....

Thanks for this post, I'd always had a visit to the brutaslism of Thamesmead on my todo list, but now I look forward to combining it with Lesnes Woods as well.
Couldn't resist, sorry... ish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaBBg6Cyv9Q

(Also, maybe update your comment header to say "Please empty your brain below, so long as it stays on topic") ... ?

(Hope you colour this purple soon).

Great post. Anyone hoping to see Thamesmead's famous estate alongside a trip to the ruins shouldn't wait too long. Much is earmarked for demolition in coming years.

Peabody are however spending £12.5 million on improvements to the link park between the ruins and Southmere lake. Some is complete and worth a trip. Just past there is the Victorian pumping station which has an open day soon. They are working on creating a museum http://www.crossness.org.uk/

The Guardian story about the converted garage is actually a place in Thamesmead and not Abbey Wood. Like many others are doing, they're airbrushing the town out of existence. Thamesmead's architecture is quite iconic and far removed from that in most of Abbey Wood - which comprises low rise terraces, ranging from Victorian to the 1950s on the whole.
The new café is indeed replacing the old information centre. But let us not forget that the information centre replaced the original café.
Why the council chose to get rid of the café for an information centre when they could have had both remains a mystery.










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