Sunday 16 December 2001
We’d done a lot of docklands explorers and train assisted rides recently, so a meander into central London for some culture seemed timely.
A dozen of us met at the Cutty Sark for 10am, a cold, but very dry grey day. We headed west over the Ravensbourne and past a dead fox at Creek Bridge. Then St Nicholas’s church at Deptford Green (moving plaque to Christopher Marlowe on churchyard wall) and good to see a new bar opened in Heather’s. Then around the still private Convoys Dockyard and hidden Shipwright’s Palace, down Czar Street (Nicholas the Great learnt shipbuilding here), past the fine Dog and Bell and its safe bike park, through Sayes Court Garden (where John Evelyn’s stately home once stood.....great autumn mulberrys from the ancient tree). Onto Grove Street and then Leeway through the Pepys Estate to the riverside and remnants of Woolwich Dockyard.
Over the lock at South Dock Marina, past the Wibbly Wobbly floating pub (worth finding), alongside Greenland Dock (early 18th century, first enclosed dock in the world), round the Rotherhithe oneway system and into Southwark Park. It’s always strangely quiet in here. The Cafe Gallery hadn’t opened at 10am as scheduled so we didn’t stop. Almost all signs of the 20’s lido have now gone as the restoration of the park proceeds. The lake that’s been doubled in size, and out into Park Approach where the rare concrete church waits a new use but hosts several art shows a year in its gloom.
We fiddled through the Long Lane market backstreets into Bermondsey Street. Lots of warehouses in mid-conversion. Zandra Rhodes bright pink Fashion Museum opens in September 2002. Then Tanner Street and the Leathermarket and many remnants of that trade. Fascinating back-streets here....to Flat Iron Square off Southwark Bridge Road. Coffee at the Island Cafe around 11.20am. They’re expanding. Easy to forget that it wasn’t long ago an Elizabethan half-timbered 30’s public convenience. It’s where we now breakfast after the 21 June summer solstice sunrise ride.
Then to the river again, the Globe, Foster’s still closed Millennium Bridge (opens end February 2002, Arup’s whisper) and to Tate Modern. We lock up at the really good covered bike racks. A quick debate on how long to stay varied from two minutes to several hours. I opted for a cruel 30 minutes. I had to stop all using the silly side entrance, the only way in is down the slope into the cavernous turbine halls. The balcony door out of the Friends room was broken so we couldn’t go out. I whizzed round the Surrealism exhibition again and was surprised how much I had missed first time round.
Along Southwark Street into the gorge between Bargehouse Walk and Oxo Tower Wharf. The green slate paving looks horribly out of place. This old power station was closed down when that at Bankside opened (see Tate) then taken over by Oxo for cubism and then in the early 90’s converted into a good mix between retail, restaurant and social housing. Architected by Lifshutz Davidson (who did the new bridge we use over the Royals).
We jammed into a lift. It jammed, several got out, and headed for the 8th floor public viewing gallery. We had to persevere. Harvey Nicks run the swanky glass walled restaurant there and told us at first that the public are was closed. They’ve narrowed the access corridor, it is not signposted. The maitre d’ said it was closed coz it was too cold. It’s winter says we. No, our customers get too cold. We went through to it, a Closed sign on the door. It was open. A rare view of the City. On the way out, I found the manager who admitted that the area should be open at all times. (Glassy footnote: years earlier I’d met the 6 knarled Milanese craftsmen who travelled from there with the glass and fitted it in two weeks. None of them spoke a word of English. They wouldn’t have looked out of place weeding a Po valley vineyard).
We carried on along Upper Ground (I didn’t point out the truly horrible cyclist’s oasis on Bernie Spain Garden opposite the southern end of Gabriel’s Wharf). Up onto Waterloo Bridge, across it, straight on up thro oddly quiet Covent Garden, up Museum Street and into the forecourt of the British Museum. We locked up on their not very good (but loads of them) parking posts. When Smirke designed the British Museum in the 1820’s (?) he left a huge 70x70 metre courtyard in the middle as a garden for visitors and curators. The British Library got founded and plonked its drum shaped reading room down in the middle. Marx etc then immortalised it. The Library then slowly filled in the whole courtyard with bookstores, offices, sheds, and portacabin. Then it moved to its Tesco-like disappointment by Colin St John Wilson next to St Pancras station.
Back at the BM, Norman Foster then swept all the clutter out of the void, beautifully restored and clad the Reading Room and put a rippling glass roof over the whole to great The Great Court. It still stuns me when I walk in there. Worth looking at the new stone on the southern entrance wall. It’s from France not Wiltshire as specified. Does it matter?
In the forecourt was an Orient Express sleeping car of the 1920’s. Lovely little cabins much smaller than on film. (Reminded me of our sleeper to St Ives.....two of us on that trip on this ride).
Over the road we met as arranged in the Museum Tavern at 1.30pm, nice old pub with ok standard food. Then Theobalds and Clerkenwell Road to Condor Bikes in Grey’s Inn Road. Paul’s new track bike is taking shape within in matt Condor black. We trickled through the silent City down to The Monument and most of us paid £1.50 (our only admission free of the day) to climb the 311 spiral steps up to the windy cage on top on this memorial to the Great Fire of 1666. By Wren, finished 1677, 202 feet high, the tallest free standing stone column in the world. Wonderful roofscapes.
Then past Tower Hill (and Foster latest set of glass offices going up fast – and replacing some hideous 60’s horrors) and onto the rather good bike lanes of Cable Street. The canal like dockside paths through Wapping and round Shadwell Basin. We didn’t stop at Wapping Pumping Station.... always worth a look round. Past the Limehouse Basin on Narrow Street and onto the river walk that takes you past the brooding breeding towers of Canary Wharf. A short stretch of Westferry Road, and there we were on Islands Gardens, the lift, the foot tunnel and safely home to Greenwich just as it was getting dark at 4.30pm.
Verdict: an off-beat day out in tourist London that avoided the naff bits and traps and some of the quirky stuff too. A good winter city all-day ride with lots of variety and drop out places.
Mileage etc: flat. A 16 mile circle.
Not a puncture or broken spoke.
After: some of us mulled it over at the Richard 3rd on Royal Hill. And I forgot I was supposed to be elsewhere.
BAM
17 December 2001