please empty your brain below
"Gray's Inn is very much a sealed legal quarter"

Eh? Not during the week, it isn't. Loads of people use it as a short cut from Chancery Lane Tube to Theobald's Road.

Here's a photo of Leather Lane in action. A lot more street food stalls are coming here, changing the character (and clientele) of the market.

Got a backpack for a tenner here in October. Very happy with it.

HoosierSands | Homepage | 12.01.16 - 7:39 a.m. | #

Also just off Brookes Market, visible in your photo, is the Anglo-Catholic church of St Alban the Martyr, with its enormous mural.

Gray's Inn is accessible for most of the working week, but not at the weekend when I expect you were doing your walk. Come along during the working day and see Leather Lane market in action.

Andrew | 12.01.16 - 7:57 a.m. | #

I did the walk on a weekday, but over New Year, so places were a lot quieter than usual, and I suspect rather more gates were shut.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 12.01.16 - 8:12 a.m. | #

This gives me an opportunity to recommend the cafe in the gardens in Red Lion Square - a great oasis, family-run and well worth a visit.

Waterhouse | 12.01.16 - 8:23 a.m. | #

Can't help thinking carriages at both ends of a Crossrail train will be packed leaving the middle section for those who enjoy long walks along platforms or are unaware of the 1 Crossrail station per 2 Underground stations arrangement.

Roger | 12.01.16 - 10:07 a.m. | #

@Roger
and possibly those whose journey starts at one of the train and ends at the other, so if they are going gto have to walk the length of the train anyway they may as well split it into two and travel in comfort.

(Although there are people like me, who use Thameslink as a glorified travelator to get from Holborn Viaduct to the South Bank - nearly half a mile - whilst only actually walking the 240m length of the train)

timbo | 12.01.16 - 11:14 a.m. | #

I was reading this post on the tube, so I used an offline map to follow the journey. Funnily enough navmii (satnav app) shows Crossrail tunnels as one-way streets across London.

Greg | 12.01.16 - 12:36 p.m. | #

I think you should set up a Youtube channel to post videos of things like your Walk Crossrail project, or Tube Weeks,or even your Random _______s! It would be great.

Tube Geek | 12.01.16 - 1:10 p.m. | #

If the in train maps showed to position of station exits and the Crossrail trains are of walk through design people could move to the correct part of the train whilst traveling.
This would be similar to some London suburban long trains arriving at stations with short platforms, where in train announcements advise people what part of the train to be in.

John | 12.01.16 - 1:28 p.m. | #

Poor old Keats Place (a short and latterly covered street named after his nearby birthplace, and a legitimate right of way) was quite a useful route to the also-closed highwalk - but had the misfortune of directly crossing the Crossrail access shaft at Moorgate, and is now only visible on vintage Google Street View footage. The plans for the new station overbuilding are disconcertingly vague on whether it'll ever reappear.

David | Homepage | 12.01.16 - 1:44 p.m. | #

I've worked in the area you've just crossed for 28 of the last 35 years, in three different buildings (one of them since demolished) and yet you still spot details I've missed.

Brookes Market and Red Lion Square were, at different times, muster points for our fire drills, so both very familiar to me and my colleagues.

Leather Lane, when it's open, is a fairly typical street market - not much more to be said really. If you like street markets you'll like it - if you don't it's purgatory. Grays Inn is much nicer, but it appears you were there on a Bank Holiday when both are closed.

timbo | 12.01.16 - 3:20 p.m. | #

I mainly know of Brookes Market as it was one of the (many) settings of Michael Moorcock's brilliant Mother London.

Steve | 12.01.16 - 3:57 p.m. | #

Think how admirably served The Museum of London will be,by the underground and Crossrail,when it moves in and takes over Smithfield Market from the meat traders,a certainty it seems in preparation for the proposed new Concert Hall on the present site of Museum of London.

Tp | 12.01.16 - 5:28 p.m. | #

As I understand it, the Museum of London will move to the (currently largely unoccupied) westernmost building, the General Market Building, by 2021. The developer sold the site to the Corporation of London a few weeks ago. http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/01012016-museum-of-london-confirms-move-to-smithfield-market

I'm not sure how much longer Harts can stay there, where they continue the tradition of the annual pre-Christmas auction, or indeed what is intended for the (also unoccupied) Fish Market and the Red House nearby, but I believe the meat market will continue in the Poultry Market and the two eastern market buildings.

Andrew | 12.01.16 - 7:40 p.m. | #

The barbican is a beauty.

Louise | 12.01.16 - 9:05 p.m. | #

Regarding Farringdon station.
None of the original 1863 station exists, that site is now the 80's monstrosity of 20 Farringdon Road. The listed Metropolitan Railway facade dates from the 1920's, however the roof and a small part of the building, which you can see a glimpse of in the extreme right of your linked flickr photo, dates from 1865.

Rich | 13.01.16 - 7:25 a.m. | #

I'd have thought a "Diamond" Geezer would have had more to say about Hatton Garden!

timbo | 14.01.16 - 10:41 a.m. | #











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