please empty your brain below
Timely post dg: as I type, I'm listening to a piece on the radio (BBC London 94.9) about the 'regeneration' of the West Hendon estate. Spooky.

Gordon | 22.01.15 - 7:23 a.m. | #

Great series of posts, thanks very much DG.

Waterhouse | 22.01.15 - 7:39 a.m. | #

It is well worth coming back on a Sunday afternoon to visit Handel's Church. The inside is not what you expect!

Peewit | 22.01.15 - 7:49 a.m. | #

Whatever happened to the tea trolley?

Andrew | 22.01.15 - 8:13 a.m. | #

I've really enjoyed this series. I particularly like the extracts of poetry.

James Armitage | Homepage | 22.01.15 - 8:26 a.m. | #

Look (on a large scale OS map) at the border between Barnet and Brent within the Welsh Harp reservoir. Fascinating that!

Stephen | 22.01.15 - 9:13 a.m. | #

There is a video showing now on the BBC News website re. the new Newspaper Library. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30929009

Mike | 22.01.15 - 10:14 a.m. | #

@Andrew - the tea trolley was axed years ago. They called it 'streamlining' and workers had to go to the canteen.

Then the canteen was 'streamlined' and replaced with a kettle, tea, coffee, sugar and a milk club on each floor.

Then Health and Safety put paid to the kettle and vending machines were installed.

Bronchitikat | Homepage | 22.01.15 - 10:23 a.m. | #

Here is a Pathe News film of the Trolleybuses at Colindale being scrapped. It says Charlton but it is definitely Colindale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhp9yaoGgW4

Picture outside the Depot

www.red-rf.com/images/645_1462_CE_MBar.jpg

Bernie | 22.01.15 - 2:08 p.m. | #

Is this story about the Hendon Waterside redevelopment? http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/20/barnet-council-social-cleansing-barratt-homes-west-hendon

About 1,500 additional homes, but about 200 *fewer* affordable or social housing. Bonkers.

Andrew | 22.01.15 - 10:40 p.m. | #

Thank you DG.I really enjoyed these posts following the route taken by Sir John,in his Contrasts programme. Good photos too,showing even more contrasts!

Jo W | 22.01.15 - 10:55 p.m. | #

@Bernie
Colindale did indeed scrap a lot of trolleybuses, but Charlton did the first. The first two routes to be withdrawn, the 696 and 699 working out of Bexleyheath (mentioned in the voiceover), had been the first to be converted from tram operation after London Transport took over in 1933, because of the parlous state of the tram infrastructure in that area. They remained isolated from the rest of the Trolleybus system until the end (the closest they came was the other side of the Woolwich ferry!)
Although some of the buses used on the 696 and 699 were transferred elsewhere on closure, to replace older vehicles, those that were surplus to requirements were scrapped locally, at Penhall Road, Charlton, which had only recently finished scrapping the last trams. Because of its isolation from the rest of the network, no others were scrapped there as far as I know.

The very last trolleybus routes were also the first, which had opened in Twickenham and Kingston before London Transport took over.

timbo | 23.01.15 - 12:07 a.m. | #

I don't blame Betjeman omitting Burnt Oak! Having grown up living at the other end of it, I would gladly do the same if I could.
The Broadway used to be lovely (I remember watching live eels slither in the stainless steel trays outside the fishmongers!) and my Nan used to work in the Co-Op department store before it became Peacocks, opposite the Bald Faced Stag, but now it's a right dump round there!

Cornish Cockney | 23.01.15 - 7:00 p.m. | #

Cornish, spot on. Burnt Oak used to have bags of character. Lots of individual shops,great atmosphere. The Watling Market on a Saturday morning was the place to go along with Millets and the London Lending Library for comics and books. All sadly gone. Even the Bald Faced Stag is shut down.

Bernie | 23.01.15 - 8:39 p.m. | #

I have a wonderful book on the very subject of Middlesex's transformation/demise and would highly recommend it. "Lost Elysium?" by Richard Piper, ISBN 1-85776-889-2. Although Piper looks more to west Middlesex than the north of the erstwhile county, he references Betjeman and much of what you write about chimes with my recollection. Thanks DG for another great series of posts.

THC | 24.01.15 - 7:24 a.m. | #

@Cornish/ Bernie There's more insight into Burnt Oak in the '70s in Robert Elms' 'The Way We Wore'. He went to the school I attended in Burnt Oak a year after me. I now live near what was the Bald Faced Stag (but is a furniture shop).

Helen D Vecht | 29.01.15 - 12:11 a.m. | #

North London Collegiate School held a concerts at St Lawrence, Little Stanmore.
I don't know if they still do but this was a real treat!

Helen D Vecht | 29.01.15 - 12:19 a.m. | #











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