This a walk that I have done many times, getting off the tube at Liverpool St Station and turning right down Liverpool Street and crossing Blomfield Street at the end of it. Then I cut though the little green park in Finsbury Circus when it is open and look on with admiration at the pristine bowling green in the middle. I hardly ever see people playing bowls there but that is clearly because I don’t come at the right times although one Saturday I did. There is a restaurant there as well that looks more like a private club. Some of the trees in Finsbury Circus are incredibly high and it always gives me a feeling of real happiness to look up at them and see nature thrive like this in the heart of the city. The best times that I have sat in Finsbury Circus have been in the warm early evenings of late Spring when the light stays on and lingers like a favourite son. Sitting on one of the wooden benches staring up at the trees swaying in the warm breeze with the cityscape behind them can bring on the rapture…the sounds of London swirling around my head as I take a sip of water…thinking about what it is to be alive…falling in love with the beauty of the world…Maybe I sit there for ten minutes or so and then I am on my way, a ghost in the vast metropolis who no one recognises and no one will remember after I have left their vision.
Then I walk out of Finsbury Circus across Moorgate and onto the Barbican, taking the escalator by Moorgate station and up onto the Moorfields Highwalk, following the yellow line as it crosses Moor Lane and then taking a right along Willoughby Highwalk until I reach the end and go left by Milton House and onto Speed Highwalk which takes me up the steps to Cromwell Highwalk and the Conservatory. If I do this on a Saturday the streets below and surrounding high-rise office buildings are empty, and also on the Barbican series of Highwalks at these times there is never really anyone about. Perfect territory for a ghost to wander and feel at ease. From Cromwell Highwalk I follow on past Upper Frobisher Crescent where once on a warm afternoon I sat and had a blissful meditation in the sun with no one around to disturb me. Then I walk through Ben Johnson Place where space widens and the wind can blow. I am on the west side of the Barbican complex now, facing into the sun if it is the afternoon and looking due west in the direction of Smithfield and beyond. On the Highwalk I walk west through Beech Gardens, Shakespeare Tower to the left rising up like a sentinel. At the end I’m onto the John Trundle Highwalk; here you can go left if you desire and take the Seddon Highwalk around to the Museum of London or you can carry on the John Trundle Highwalk and cross Aldersgate Street with the people and traffic below. I carry on.
Coming down from the Barbican Highwalks I take a right at the entrance of Barbican station and walk down Long Lane and into Smithfield, scene of much London history and a lot of it bloody. Occasionally I will spend a few minutes in the church of St Bartholomew the Great which has been on the same site since the 12th century and is one of the most atmospheric and evocative charges in London. It is also right next door to St Bart’s Hospital and it is a place associated with healing. Mostly though I will cut through Smithfield and head down Cowcross Street towards Farringdon. At the weekends of course Smithfield is pretty much deserted which suits me just fine. Most of the restaurants and pubs around there are shut but the ones that stay open seem appealing although I rarely if ever stop and use them. Cowcross Street takes me across Farringdon Road and onto Greville Street that goes through Hatton Garden. This a part of the walk where I usually keep a brisk pace, not much to stop and look at apart from diamonds. At the end of Greville Street just past Leather Lane there is Brooke Street Market and here I cut through the tail end of the market and into Brooke Square which is full of trees and in the corner of which is the church of St. Alban the Martyr that has a beautiful plant filled front courtyard and which is well worth checking out. The square has a nice feel to it and it is a good place to take a five-minute rest and enjoy the distant sounds of the city from the serenity of a little square of silence.
A little path through Brooke Court then takes me onto Grays Inn Road where I turn right and walk up to the crossroads with Theobald’s Road and Clerkenwell Road. In the week this area is busy with office people but at the weekend it is a lot quieter of course. Turning left onto Theobald’s Road it is a good idea to take a look at Gray’s Inn Gardens and have another short break. It is only open on weekdays but it is a beautiful park that has some wild parts to it which that makes it quite unlike many of the other green spaces in Central London. Again it is a great space to lie down and look into the sky, peace is attainable here even though it is in the middle of the city. London is truly amazing in that regard. Coming out of the gardens I continue down Theobald’s Road and cross Southampton Row into Vernon Place, and here it is only a matter of yards before I turn into Bloomsbury Square Gardens on the right which I walk through and then of course I am right opposite the British Museum on Great Russell Street. I walk down Great Russell Street until I get to Tottenham Court Road. This now is pretty much the West End.
At the end of Great Russell Street I walk straight across Tottenham Court Road and onto the narrow Hanway Street that runs behind Oxford Street for a little while and which is home to a number of Spanish bars and Japanese restaurants. Hanway Street takes me onto Oxford Street at a point where it is possible to walk straight across the road and into Soho Square. It is a good way of dodging the slow moving crowds that are always on Oxford Street. I come off Soho Square onto Carlisle Street which I follow to the end where it becomes a path that takes me through Great Chapel Street and Sheraton Street and then across Wardour Street down to the end of Albany Street where it leads onto Poland Street. I am threading my way Soho at this point of course and the people on the streets in this part of town always seem to be walking fast, like they have somewhere really important to get to which they probably do. I take a right onto Poland Street walking past the popular American ribs joint and then I take a left onto Marlborough Street which I walk across and walk along until I get to Ramilies Street which I turn down and then emerge again onto Oxford Street next to Marks and Spencer and a stone’s throw away from Oxford Circus.
If I do this walk in the middle of the week I feel lucky that I have the chance to do so, and that I have the time to take in the wonder of the city when so many people around me are obviously in a rush trying to get from A to B, whether it be going out of the office to grab a sandwich and do a quick bit of shopping or just trying to get to their next appointment. It is doubtful whether they have the time to see the same things as me, even if it is just to look up at the trees and see them swaying in the breeze, although I could be wrong of course. Who is to say what the capacity is of other peoples’ awareness? As far as I’m concerned however the sights of a city like London are truly amazing and I love the place more than for many years I would ever have thought possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment