please empty your brain below
Great idea for a blog series. And rather than Cuffley my mind went to Moor Park - but you must have been there over the years I reckon.

THC | 08.08.24 - 7:11 a.m. | #

Never mind Cuffley, Potters Bar is the place to visit if or when heading north

Frank F | 08.08.24 - 7:17 a.m. | #

Do you intend to revisit Crewe? Or indeed Paris?

RC | 08.08.24 - 7:25 a.m. | #

You could have mentioned the Thames Ditton miniature railway to help beyter connect with your theme. SWR features this destination as being a 16 min walk from Hinchley Wood station, although technically it is fractionally closer to Thames Ditton railway station itself!

I also highly recommend it, as when I was there everyone was having a thoroughly good time, young and old. In fact, how about a series on London's miniature railways, they deserve all the publicity they can get. Also, I know that said railway may not actually be in the parish of Hinchley Wood.

dg writes: It's not, which is why I didn't mention it.

However, my main point in writing is that I dread the day you have to alight at Ewell East (reached by the S2 bus, of course). Other than giving publicity to a branch of a national carvery chain, then ... (go on, surprise me).

Ken | 08.08.24 - 7:43 a.m. | #

I read through, waiting for to opportunity to post my hopes for a Cuffley post, only for DG to deflate me at the end. Still, there is always Waltham Cross, resting place of Queens.

*Looks at the entry for Tuesday September 27 2016*

Oh...

Steve | 08.08.24 - 8:18 a.m. | #

With Cavan bakery and Kavanagh supermarket is there some residual link to rural Ireland about Hinchley Wood?

dg writes: plainly not

Ian | 08.08.24 - 8:45 a.m. | #

Hinchley Wood was also where the luxury cycle retailer Sigma Sport[s], had its first shop, after vacating a bedroom somewhere in the area in which the first mail-order incarnation was born.

felix | 08.08.24 - 8:46 a.m. | #

If you didn't get the train there it doesn't count. Sorry, them's the rules.

Scott | Homepage | 08.08.24 - 9:12 a.m. | #

Ken - I assume the wonders of Nonsuch Park would drop into that particular "One Stop Beyond".

A3Warrior | 08.08.24 - 9:14 a.m. | #

Stop dissing.
I think I'm rather going to enjoy this series.

Chris | 08.08.24 - 9:26 a.m. | #

One Stop Beyond - what utter Madness!

By the end of the series (unless it quietly fades away!) many of us will have forgotten you blogged about Iver & Denham so they could make an appearance for completion's sake!

Cornish Cockney | 08.08.24 - 9:27 a.m. | #

One stop beyond (and like many others I have Madness in my head) is quite variable around London, as it's a mixture of quite major towns kept outside of London when the 60s boundaries were changed, and insignificant places like Cuffley, which has a nice railway viaduct and an average pub.

Mikey C | 08.08.24 - 9:56 a.m. | #

“One Stop Beyond” seems like Madness!

Kim | 08.08.24 - 11:31 a.m. | #

Fascinating piece. I used to play badminton there, in the local secondary school, in the evenings.

marmaduke jinks | 08.08.24 - 11:38 a.m. | #

It's a lot more interesting than car number plateszzzzz...

south london lad | 08.08.24 - 12:03 p.m. | #

Really looking forward to this series! It’s just the sort of places I would go myself. I wonder how many can be accessed by TfL bus and how many will need you to use the train (or walk).

Nick | 08.08.24 - 12:28 p.m. | #

I’m in awe of the interwar developments outward from London. Those along the A3 into Surrey are not unique, but as Hinchley’s wiki notes, the speed at which the houses were built was “phenomenal”. Paul Vaughn (iconic BBC Horizon voice) explores this in his most excellent memoir ‘Something in Linoleum’ about growing up in New Malden. Hinchley is just that one, small step beyond. Interesting.

jpmac | 08.08.24 - 1:35 p.m. | #

If you come to Brentwood, make sure that you discuss:
• the platform 4 lift saga (they were going to build a lift, but complications arose, and since there was step-free access already...),
• the rather unfriendly location for the rail replacement bus service, which location dates from a unique situation that arose in 2017 when the location really was (temporarily) the best place,
• the reduction in coverage of the 498 bus late at night when the A12/M25/A1023 junction has partial slip-road closures (quite frequent at the moment, due to the new slip-road under construction, about which you blogged in your postcode series), and
• the block of flats called Station Court which is not quite as close to the station as the name implies

anon | 08.08.24 - 1:51 p.m. | #

Might Surbiton Hockey club along Sugden Lane have counted or is your definition of Hinchley Wood so tight that it’s excluded?

dg writes: that's in Long Ditton.

Robert Butlin | 08.08.24 - 2:25 p.m. | #

Great to see a post on Hinchley Wood. I know it well having previously been a samba teacher at the secondary school for many years. Lots of little gigs on and around the area - notably the Green by the station. A nice, but very expensive area for housing (as you note)

Le Ver | 08.08.24 - 5:21 p.m. | #

I had the misfortune to live in Hinchley Wood (close to the station) for a year. The Cavan bakery was indeed lovely.

But the Residents Association will remain my mortal enemy until my dying day. We weren't the right sort of people, you see.

Steve Conway | 08.08.24 - 9:28 p.m. | #

The old government buildings housed much more than the Inland Revenue. It was one of two London bases for the investigation of serious fraud against the benefit system - not a little bit of working while claiming, but serious criminal conspiracies. There is drama even in the most quietly innocuous looking places.

Marek | 08.08.24 - 10:03 p.m. | #

A lovely little post and a fine idea for a new series.

I had nearly two weeks' worth of posts to catch up on, all collecting in my RSS feed so you won't get many site view stats, sorry.

Louise | 09.08.24 - 1:19 p.m. | #











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