A poem by a creative transport worker from Harrow-on-the-Hill about a mural at Brixton station has gone on display at St James’s Park station as part of TfL’s Art on the Underground’s writer in residence scheme.
Anthony Okolie at St James’s Park station (c) TfL
Anthony Okolie’s poem ‘Ode to the Mother’ is inspired by the large-scale public artwork by Jem Perucchini over the entrance of Brixton Underground station, which responds to the diverse narratives
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Harrow transport worker’s art-inspired poetry at central London tube station
via ianvisits.co.uk -
TfL seeking suppliers for Bakerloo line overhaul
via ianvisits.co.ukThe elderly Bakerloo line trains will eventually need to be replaced, and Transport for London (TfL) has started looking for suppliers to prepare the Bakerloo line for the new trains.
(c) ianVisits
The new trains, presumed to be based on the forthcoming Piccadilly line trains are needed as the existing Bakerloo line trains are way past their operational life and the cost of keeping them limping on is increasing each year.
The old trains also don’t comply with modern accessibility standards -
Tickets Alert: Tours of Dorneywood House and the gardens
via ianvisits.co.ukGifted to the nation for the use by a government minister, just outside London can be found a modest mansion that’s also open to the public, but only for a couple of weeks a year.
(c) Dorneywood Trust
Dorneywood House is the less famous of the three grand estates used by government ministers, after Chequers and Chevening House, and is also the only one that the public can visit. You can visit the gardens of Chevening House, or walk past Chequers, but only Dorneywood House lets you inside t -
London’s Alleys: Padbury Court, E2
via ianvisits.co.ukThis mixed passageway in Bethnal Green echoes many post-war areas, lined with cobbled paving and remnants of old buildings, but also a long row of 1960s flats.The area around the alley was still farmland, known as Swan Fields in the 1740s, but you can see in John Rocque’s map of 1746 that it’s starting to be surrounded by buildings which will soon cover the area.
John Rocque’s map of London 1746
Fifty years later, the outlines of the passage are visible as Princes Street, with -
British Museum retakes crown for the UK’s most visited attraction
via ianvisits.co.ukThe British Museum has retaken its top spot as the UK’s most visited visitor attraction, boosted by last summer’s China history exhibition. The last time the museum was the UK’s most visited attraction was in 2019.
British Museum (c) ianVisits
According to figures from The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA), visits to their reporting sites across the UK were up by 19% on the previous year to just under 150 million, but they are still down by 11% on pre-pandemic n -
Telecoms groups reroute Red Sea internet traffic after Houthi attacks
via ft.comCompanies act after reports that submarine cables were cut by an anchor from a sunken ship -
Euston station will be closed over the Easter weekend
via ianvisits.co.ukIf you were planning to travel via Euston station this Easter, try to change your plans, as the station will be closed all weekend.
Network Rail has outlined its Easter weekend engineering plans, and although they say 95% of the railway will be open, there will be disruptions.
West Coast Main Line track renewals (c) Network Rail
For Londoners and visitors to London, the main impact will be the closure of London Euston station over the entire weekend. Euston will be closed because of engineering -
Tickets Alert: Pokemon Pop-Up coming to London
via ianvisits.co.ukThe 2024 Pokémon Europe International Championships will be coming to ExCeL in east London next month, and there’s an associated pop-up store that will be open to the general public.
(c) Pokemon Center
Doubtless, the DLR and Elizabeth line trains will also be unusually colourful, especially at the weekend when attendees dress up for the day.
The Pokémon Center pop-up shop will be inside the championship venue. You will not need a competitor or spectator badge to enter the sto -
Identities of next two Trafalgar Square artworks confirmed
via ianvisits.co.ukThe names of the next two artworks to be displayed in Trafalgar Square have been confirmed following a public exhibition of the shortlisted artists.
The first is Lady in Blue by Tschabalala Self – being installed in 2026
The sculpture pays homage to a young, metropolitan woman of colour inspired by a desire to bring a contemporary ‘everywoman’ to Trafalgar Square. Made of bronze, the work will be patinated with Lapis Lazuli blue, a rare and refined pigment that has been used si -
Tickets Alert: Chevening House gardens open day
via ianvisits.co.ukThe date of the annual open day of Chevening House’s gardens has been announced, and it’s a chance to wander around an impressive garden normally reserved for government ministers and their staff.The building, Chevening House was built around 400 years ago, and it would probably still be a private house, but the last Earl Stanhope, childless and with his brother killed in WW1, effectively gifted it to the nation. A trust was set up in 1959 that allows a government minister nominated -
Vodafone to sell Italian business to Swisscom for €8bn
via ft.comUK telecoms group pledges to return €4bn to shareholders after ‘final step’ in reshaping of European operations -
Vodafone agrees to sell Italian business to Swisscom for €8bn
via ft.comTelecoms group to return €4bn to shareholders through buybacks -
TfL rules out regular London Overground trains to London Bridge
via ianvisits.co.ukA plan to run London Overground trains into London Bridge as a regular service is unlikely to happen because Southern is expected to restore their service through the Sydenham Corridor to four trains an hour in 2025.
Overground train at London Bridge on a recent test (c) ianVisits
At the moment, Southern provides two trains an hour, having reduced the service during the pandemic. Although the line is shared with the London Overground along most of its route, people usually have to change trains -
London Mithraeum tops half million visitors since it opened
via ianvisits.co.ukThe restored Roman remains of the London Mithraeum in the City have been seen by half a million people since it opened in 2017, the Mithraeum has announced.The Mithraeum was originally uncovered in 1952 but spent several decades in a rather uninspiring display around the corner from where it was found in a setting that made it look more like a 1970s municipal rock garden than an important piece of Roman London history.
Fortunately, when the old 1960s offices were demolished to be replaced with t -
A visit to St Stephen’s Church, Hounslow
via ianvisits.co.ukJust under 150 years ago a new church opened in Hounslow to serve the growing population. This is St Stephen’s Church, but if you look at it carefully, you might notice that the tower seems a bit out of place, and that’s because it was added 60 years after the church opened.The church owes its existence to the expanding local population, particularly from the early 1800s onwards. Only the Holy Trinity Church, which dates from 1721, could cater to the population. In 1856, a decision w -
Tickets Alert: Boat trip through a canal tunnel under Islington
via ianvisits.co.ukRegular trips through a long dark canal tunnel under Islington will resume later this month, and tickets are on sale now.
(c) ianVisits
Run by the Canal Museum near King’s Cross, the tour is simple but wonderfully atmospheric — a trip from the museum in a narrowboat through the tunnel to the other end and back again.
You embark at the museum, and then there’s a brief talk in the boat before heading out into the canal to go through the tunnel. The tours are for small groups, and -
From Dangleways to Driverless Pods: The rejected Thamesmead DLR extensions
via ianvisits.co.ukThere are plans to extend the DLR to Thamesmead, but before TfL put that out to consultation, they considered everything from extending the Jubilee line to building new cable cars. Forty-two options were considered, and thanks to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, you can see just how unconventional some of the ideas suggested were.
Proposed extension (c) TfL
National RailExtension from Plumstead to Thamesmead
Extension from Plumstead to Belvedere via ThamesmeadElizabeth lineExtension from -
Train Sim World adds London Overground expansion with Goblin “Easter Egg”
via ianvisits.co.ukTrain Sim World, the train simulator game, has added the GOBLIN branch of the London Overground to their platform, so you can now manage a train trip from Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside.
(c) Train Sim World
The game route has scenery that represents the built-up area around this part of north London, including dense collections of residential buildings and lighting that recreates the suburban atmosphere after the sun has gone down.
Along with the existing stations, they’ve added the exten -
Rare copy of a Beck-inspired tube map – for Australia
via ianvisits.co.ukWhen the now classic Harry Beck designed tube map was first released in the 1930s, it proved so popular that a version – complete with tube roundel – soon appeared on the other side of the world, in Sydney.
A rare copy of the Sydney map is now being offered for sale by London-based map specialists Altea Gallery.
Sydney railway map (c) Altea Gallery
Sydney railway map (c) Altea Gallery
Prior to Beck, although diagram style maps had long been used inside trains — similar to the o -
Activist investors’ cosy deals with boards deserve greater scrutiny
via ft.comLawsuit in Crown Castle/Elliott case highlights how other parties are taking an interest in fine print of settlements -
Unleash your inner child at ‘Art of the Brick’ LEGO exhibition
via ianvisits.co.ukAppropriately for the location, just off Brick Lane can be found an exhibition of bricks — LEGO bricks in fact, over a million of them. It’s a collection thats been put together by the USA based artist Nathan Sawaya, and is now a travelling show, Art of the Brick.Although Sawaya is called an artist, much of the work on display are brick-form copies of other things. So while hugely impressive technically, this isn’t the sort of exhibition to visit to see newly created art, but t -
Initial funding for Elephant & Castle railway station upgrade
via ianvisits.co.ukAn ambition to upgrade the Elephant & Castle railway station has taken a step forward after initial funding was granted for planning work to be carried out.
Station entrance (c) ianVisits
Due to the expected increased footfall at the station following work on the town centre, Network Rail is looking to improve the station facilities by improving accessibility to all four platforms whilst also creating a larger station concourse and installing ticket gates.
The station currently has four plat -
Tickets Alert: Perivale Wood’s 2024 bluebells open days
via ianvisits.co.ukA normally closed nature reserve in west London will be open for two days in April when the woods are filled with bluebells at their best.
(c) ianVisits
At 27 acres in size, Perivale Wood sits just next to the Central line railway and is one of the oldest dedicated nature reserves in the UK. Set up as a bird sanctuary at a time when all around here were fields, it was an unusually farsighted vision of how urban sprawl could someday leave no large swathes of woodland for birds.
Now, each spring, -
Look out for this retro British Rail inspired train makeover
via ianvisits.co.ukIf you time it right, you’ll be able to see a special train on the SouthWestern Railway route — that’s been painted in a British Rail 1980s-inspired colour scheme.South Western Railway has unveiled the special ‘new’ livery for one of its Class 455 trains during its last paint job ahead of its eventual retirement. The retro look, which was applied at SWR’s Bournemouth Depot, is inspired by the original British Rail Blue and Minerva Grey livery that customers wo -
A feast of fabric at the Barbican
via ianvisits.co.ukThe usually brutalist Barbican is somewhat softer at the moment, as the art gallery has been filled with soft textiles, looking at how fabrics have been used in art rather than fashion.It’s an exceptionally wide-ranging exhibition, from artworks that look almost like clothing to artworks that are so sculptural that it can be almost difficult to believe they’ve been made out of textiles.
The exhibition’s impetus is the notion that fabric as art has been overlooked for too long a -
Crowdfunding campaign to save HQS Wellington
via ianvisits.co.ukThe former HMS Wellington, the large white ship moored on the Thames in central London, is 90 years old this year but has had to launch a fundraising campaign to ensure it sees out its centenary.HMS Wellington, moored at Temple Stairs, Victoria Embankment, has been a part of London’s river scene since she was towed there in December 1948 after her career as a Royal Navy warship during World War II
For most of her time in London, the ship has been the floating Livery Hall for the Honourable -
Bronze baby animals filling a corner of Paternoster Square
via ianvisits.co.ukJust around the corner from St Paul’s Cathedral are some giant baby animals — all frozen in bronze.Twenty newborns are on display, each from a different species, from giganticly oversized gorilla to a polar bear to a tiny koala.
They’ve been created by Gillie and Marc, whose sculptures often pop up as fundraisers for campaigns, as in this case for the WWF. Unlike other sculpturees that often have signs asking people not to climb on them, these ones apparently welcome clambering -
Waterloo station set for huge “London Bridge style” upgrade
via ianvisits.co.ukWaterloo station could soon receive a huge London Bridge-style upgrade, according to plans shown off by Network Rail and Lambeth council.
Artist’s impression of a potential future station undercroft (c) Network Rail
The station sits on top of a large maze of huge brick arches, which are mainly used for back-of-house facilities or left empty. The plans will see these arches opened up to form new public spaces with escalators to the platforms.
Some of the undercroft spaces (c) ianVisits
Just -
London’s Alleys: Red Cow Yard, EC1
via ianvisits.co.ukThis is an exceptionally short stump of an alley on Old Street that resembles a post-war gap where a house wasn’t rebuilt until you spot the street name sign and realise it’s the remains of a once slightly longer passage.The alley first appeared in the 1680s as a gap between the houses facing Old Street (called Rotten Row) leading to the empty fields to the north. At the time, it seems to have been called simply Cow Court, and another alley nearby was later added and called Red Cow A -
French prosecutors probe corruption allegations linked to telecoms group Altice
via ft.comInvestigation follows arrest of co-founder Armando Pereira in Portugal last year -
Tate Britain’s entrance set for nature’s revival with a new wildlife-filled garden
via ianvisits.co.ukTate Britain is to revamp the plain lawn in front of the gallery into a new garden after it received a grant from the Clore Duffield Foundation.
The front lawn as it is today (c) Tate Britain
The old entrance to the gallery with its grand staircase has two rather plain lawns on either side, and these will be redesigned into a new wildlife-filled garden to a design by Tom Stuart-Smith Studio, in collaboration with architects Feilden Fowles and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).
The two lawns -
National Theatre planning £125 million upgrade for its 50 year old building
via ianvisits.co.ukThe National Theatre on the Southbank is about to embark on a major upgrade of the building, which is nearly 50 years old and starting to show it.
(c) ianvisits
The project will replace failing end-of-life theatre systems, support repairs to the Olivier Theatre’s scenery lift, which is vital to the theatre’s operation, and develop solutions for the refurbishment of the Olivier theatre’s unique stage drum revolve system.
The theatre upgrade is expected to cost around £125 -
St Pancras station planning for more international passengers
via ianvisits.co.ukSt Pancras International station is looking at how it can expand its capacity to handle more passengers and is commissioning architects to provide suggestions about how to do that.
St Pancras station (c) ianVisits
HS1, the company that operates St Pancras station, says Eurostar aspires to grow its passenger throughput capacity from 1,800 passengers an hour to 2,700 passengers an hour by 2025.
To handle that growth, the station will need to be upgraded.
HS1 also notes that as the station and trac -
Ballot to win King Charles III’s first release banknotes
via ianvisits.co.ukAhead of the release of the new King Charles III banknotes in June, there’s a charity ballot that will let you win a set of low-serial numbered banknotes.
King Charles III banknotes (c) Bank of England
For collectors, the lower the serial number, the better, and the auction house Spink & Son has an agreement with the Bank of England to run this first release ballot. As it’s a ballot, the price is fixed at an affordable amount, as winners will have the opportunity to purchase a fu -
Tickets Alert: Behind the scenes tours of the National Archives
via ianvisits.co.ukNot far from Kew in southwest London is the government’s repository for its historic records, where people spend hours studying old documents for interesting nuggets that you may later read in a book, or a website article.
(c) National Archives
If you’ve seen TV documentaries in which a presenter is taken into an archive and shown a document pulled out of the long racks of boxes, you might be a tad disappointed to learn that this is just for TV and is not how researchers usually read -
Another viewing tower for London – this time in Greenwich
via ianvisits.co.ukLondon is about to get another viewing tower, although this time, it’s the reopening of a long-closed tower in Greenwich as part of a redevelopment of the building.
(c) Riverlow Group
The clock tower is a substantial landmark in Greenwich town centre. It was built in the 1930s for Greenwich Town Hall, and although the tower had a viewing gallery, it closed a very long time ago. The council moved out in 1972, and the building used for a university and offices, but it’s been empty sinc -
London Transport Museum exhibition bridges 1940s London and 2020s Kyiv
via ianvisits.co.ukModern computers can colourise old WWII photos and make them seem modern, but what if colour photos of people sheltering in underground stations weren’t of 1940s London but 2020s Kyiv?That’s what’s on display at the London Transport Museum, which has collected recent photos from Ukraine’s underground train tunnels and put them in context with their WWII contemporaries from London.
It’s a fascinating historical collection, but more than that, it’s deeply moving -
BRIO releases an official London Underground toy train
via ianvisits.co.ukThe toy train company, BRIO has started selling a London Underground themed train set that’s been officially licensed to carry the tube logo.
(c) BRIO
They’ve long sold a generic underground train toy kit, but it’s not really a proper tube train that a Londoner would recognise, so TfL’s licensing agency IMG has secured a partnership to launch an official Tube BRIO train.
A part of BRIO’s Trains of the World series, the toys replicate the London Underground’s c -
Early hours visits to see the Natural History Museum’s dinosaurs
via ianvisits.co.ukThe Natural History Museum’s dinosaur’s gallery can feel as crowded as a tube train at times, but you can visit the room when it’s empty, with early morning tours.
(c) Natural History Museum
As the tours are an hour before the museum opens to the public, you’ll have the whole space to yourselves and the visits to the dinosaurs also come with a tour guide to show you around the room and answer questions.
You need to be able to get to the Natural History Museum for 8:45am, -
Climb up Crane Park’s “Shot Tower”
via ianvisits.co.ukA smidge over 200 years ago, a tall tower was built in the middle of what was once a very secure military-industrial site, but is today a nature reserve, and you can climb to the top of the tower for the views.
This is the incorrectly named Shot Tower, which is now thought to have been possibly a large windmill.That it was thought to be a shot tower is quite understandable, as it sits in the middle of what was the Hounslow Gunpowder Mills, where military armaments were made, probably from the ti -
From tracks to trees: TfL’s vision for a greener and wildlife-friendly London
via ianvisits.co.ukOne of London’s largest landowners has outlined how it will improve the environment across its huge estate — and that landowner is Transport for London (TfL).
Almost a third of TfL’s 2,300 hectares of land is covered by vegetation, from the long linear wildlife strips along railways to plots of land that are unsuitable for development and are left as wildlife spaces, though to the network of major roads that TfL manages.
Understandably, many of these spaces are actively control -
Intercity 125 train returning to London for one day
via ianvisits.co.ukNext Friday, there will be a very special visitor to Marylebone station – an Intercity 125 train, and you could be on it.
London Marylebone station (c) ianVisits
The Intercity 125 train will be recreating the The Master Cutler service, as a nod to the named train that originally ran along the Great Central route between Marylebone and Shefield, and is part of Marylebone station’s 125th anniversary celebrations, as the station opened on 15th March 1899.
Although The Master Cutler was -
Friday and Saturday lates at the Barbican Conservatory
via ianvisits.co.ukIn the heart of the City of London is a large heated conservatory that’s occasionally open to the public and currently also hosts an art exhibition.
And for the next few weeks, it will also be open late on Friday and Saturday evenings.The conservatory, the second largest in London, wraps around the Barbican theatre’s fly tower and is deceptively large. There are several routes around and even an upper level to get up close to the tree canopy. At the moment, floating sculptures by the -
Closing the Gap as Cycleway 4 connects Greenwich to London Bridge
via ianvisits.co.ukThere’s no need to mind the gap anymore, as it has become easier to cycle from Greenwich to London Bridge after a break in the cycle lane at a busy road junction was closed.Cycleway 4 runs between London Bridge and Greenwich, but a gap existed around the busy Surrey Quays gyratory, that was always on the plan to fix, but was delayed by the pandemic. It’s only a small section, but it passes through a complicated and busy set of road junctions which are quite offputting if trying to cy -
London’s Pocket Parks: St Johns’ Cloister Garden, EC1
via ianvisits.co.ukThis is an easy to miss garden in Clerkenwell hidden away behind a high wall and although it looks like its part of the neighbouring church, it’s actually fairly modern — the result of post WWII clearance.There’s been a church on the site though back to the 18th-century, but closed as a parish church in 1931 and was gifted to the worldwide Order of Saint John (chartered 1888) to be its main English chapel.
They didn’t get to enjoy it for long as WWII gutted the church and -
Rossetti’s “very best picture” returns to City of London’s art gallery
via ianvisits.co.ukOne of the most popular paintings at Guildhall Art Gallery will return to public view this week, after being on tour for a few years in exhibitions about the life and work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
La Ghirlandata – cropped
Described by the Pre-Raphaelite artist and poet as “my very best picture”, La Ghirlandata was loaned to Tate Britain for The Rossettis exhibition in London and the Delaware Art Museum.
The oil painting, made in 1873, depicts ‘the garlanded woman’ -
Chiswick House & Gardens to develop underused historic areas into a community hub
via ianvisits.co.ukChiswick House & Gardens has shown off plans to restore an overgrown 17th century walled garden into a fruit garden, and develop underused ‘back of house’ areas to create new facilities for the local community.
Cedar Yards, a new creative and community campus at the heart of Chiswick House & Gardens, will support the Trust’s volunteering and community activities. The Creative Campus will convert the currently underused historic back sheds and stables to create affordabl -
A helicopter and boats to perform a rare ceremony at the Tower of London
via ianvisits.co.ukNext week, a fairly rare ceremony will take place in and around the Tower of London, and it’s even more special than usual this time.
Ceremony of the Constables Dues by HMS Liverpool 2012 (c) ianVisits
It’s the Ceremony of the Constable’s Dues, one of those ancient traditions that the UK is so damn good at, can be indirectly traced back at least 700 years, and is related to the Crown’s authority over the City of London.
However, what is usually a ceremonial march to the T -
How private equity is behind the latest loss from London’s stock market
via ft.comNasdaq-listed Viavi has turned to Silver Lake for investment to back its £1bn deal to buy Spirent -
London Zoo’s new reptiles house is about to open
via ianvisits.co.ukLondon Zoo is about to open a new building, focused on reptiles and amphibians, and will offer a glimpse into the Zoo’s breeding and animal care areas, with the ‘behind-the-scenes’ bought to the fore in the new space.
Artist sketch of the new building (c) planning docs/ London Zoo
The new home replaces the Zoo’s historic reptile house, which was built in 1926, but no longer fit for modern conservation work. The replacement building is itself a reminder of changing attitud
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