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• London’s Pocket Parks: Hatton Cross tube station, TW6

  16-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A series of neglected spaces outside Hatton Cross tube station in west London have been given an ecological makeover.The raised beds were created in the 1970s along with the tube station, and although at times looked after, they have generally not been that well cared for over the decades and had become rather overgrown. It has now been transformed thanks to two projects coming together to improve the station. The gardens have been given a makeover, while a new mural has softened the brutalist b
  
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• An upside down tube station illusion is coming to London

  30-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A museum filled with optical illusions, including an upside-down tube station, will open in London soon, twisting the definition of what a museum should be as deftly as its illusions distort visitors’ perceptions.
  Opening on 17th July, Paradox Museum will have over 50 exhibits and 25 immersive rooms that will resemble an upmarket hall of mirrors from seasides and funfairs, but will instead be in the heart of Knightsbridge.
  The organisers say that an average visit will last about 90 minutes
  
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• Tate unveils 2025 exhibitions: From 1980s club icon Leigh Bowery to Turner and Constable

  30-05-2024 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  It was confirmed today that the 1980s gay clubbing icon Leigh Bowery, Nigerian Modernism, and the classic artists Constable and Turner will all be the subjects of exhibitions at London’s Tate galleries next year.
  Fergus Greer,Leigh Bowery Session I Look 2 1988 (c) Fergus Greer, Estate of Leigh BoweryLee Miller, Model with lightbulb, Vogue Studio, London, England c.1943 (c) Lee Miller Archives
  Maria Balshaw, Director of Tate, said, “These exhibitions show Tate at our most ambitious an
  
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• Free display of Chihuly’s colourful glass art at Chelsea Barracks

  30-05-2024 14:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The newish gardens at Chelsea Barracks are currently an outdoor art gallery, having been decorated with works by the glass artist Dale Chihuly.Looking not entirely unlike exotic plants that have all flowered at once, the cluster of glassy art does seem to fit into the garden space, both standing out as art and yet feeling entirely at home as if they’ve always been here.
  The most obvious is Electric Yellow and Deep Coral Tower, a massive column of twisting yellow and red fronds rising from
  
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• You can Bank on mobile phone coverage on the London Underground

  30-05-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Bank tube station has become the latest station to join the expanding mobile phone coverage on the London Underground.Within the station, the Central line platforms, passageways, and escalators leading to and from the main ticket hall now have mobile coverage. Later this year, coverage will also be extended to the platforms of the Northern line when the City branch of the Northern line is also covered for the first time.
  Work will soon start to add mobile phone coverage to the Waterloo & Cit
  
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• Railways could carry electricity: HS1 and University of Kent investigate feasibility

  30-05-2024 09:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Railways that were once used to move coal to generate electricity could be used to carry the electricity itself –  if a study finds that high-voltage power cables can be safely run along the tracks.
  Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
  HS1, the high-speed rail link between London and the Channel Tunnel, has commissioned a study to examine the options for distributing electricity along the tracks. HS1 says this could be done using a new cable within the existing train line boundary to he
  
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• A visit to Twickenham Museum

  30-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  On the edges of old Twickenham town centre is a small house and a small museum, and it’s, well, it’s very small indeed. It’s not that Twickenham lacks history but that the museum lacks the square footage to tell the story.
  It does have one remarkable redeeming feature, but more about that later.The museum is in an old Georgian house that was once home to a local watermen family. When its final owner, local conservation campaigner Jack Ellis, died thirty years ago, he donated th
  
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• Strawberry Hill House to be transformed by 30 floral designers for a flower festival

  29-05-2024 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  If the Chelsea Flower Show whetted your appetite for all things floral, then you’ll want to hear that a gothic house will be filled with flowers for a whole weekend later this year.
  (c) Strawberry Hill House & Garden
  For one weekend, Strawberry Hill House in southwest London will be filled with the work of 30 floral designers, who have been given the run of the building for their displays.
  Responding to the theme of “nature unbound”, sustainable practices utilising the late
  
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• Highams station marks 150th anniversary with new heritage plaque

  29-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A commemorative plaque has been unveiled at Highams Park station to mark its 150th anniversary.
  The plaque was the idea of Network Rail’s chair, Peter, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, who suggested it at an event to mark the actual anniversary date — on 17th November 2023. Suggested and now funded by Arriva Rail London, the plaque was unveiled on Saturday 25th May 2024, on the station’s exterior.
  Lord Hendy and Gordon Turpin unveil the plaque – Photo: John Murray of PNJ Phot
  
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• Comics across the Pond: Exploring a century of US-UK cartoonist collaboration

  29-05-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  One hundred thirty years ago, the first full-colour newspaper comic was published in the USA but only arrived in the UK by accident. This accident triggered the rise of comics in the UK, and now the Cartoon Museum is looking at how the USA and UK cartoonists influenced each other over the past century or so.The accidental arrival of the New York World comics was due to unsold copies of the newspaper being used as heavy ballast in container ships heading to the UK and then being sold cheaply to l
  
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• London’s Pocket Parks: Stratford Park, E15

  29-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  This pocket park near Stratford town centre can, sort of, be considered to be part of West Ham football club’s origin story.The area was still a mix of fields being slowly surrounded by expanding housing and industrial estates when some of the land was leased to Scottish shipowner Donald Currie in September 1892. He used the land to set up a company football club for his employees working in the docks.
  Called the Castle Swifts, the football team only used the site for a year, as there was
  
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• Exploring Japan’s design legacy: A pop-up museum in London

  28-05-2024 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Just down the road from the UK’s Design Museum is an exhibition of objects that would amply fit into a Japanese design museum — if it had one. That’s the idea behind this exhibition — as Japan doesn’t have a national design museum, what would people put in such a museum if one were to be built.Seven major Japanese creators, from filmmakers to architects and fashion designers, have presented their chosen national treasures, spanning 10,000 years from a variety of loc
  
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• Local councils push for transport expansion: Elizabeth and Bakerloo lines under review

  28-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Local councils have commissioned a review of transport options, including extensions of the Elizabeth and Bakerloo lines, to push them forward.
  The councils are all members of Local London, a lobbying group which includes Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Bromley, Enfield, Greenwich, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, and Waltham Forest.Boroughs in the Local London region say they have experienced significant demographic change and population growth, out-stripping national and London averages. However, th
  
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• Watch the Paris Olympics on big outdoor screens in London

  28-05-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  There will be (at least) three free “fan zones in London for people wanting to watch the Paris Olympics this summer.
  (c) ianVisits
  Alongside the big screen sporting action, visitors to the Team GB Fanzone at King’s Cross in London will also enjoy/endure (delete as apropriate) live DJ sets, the chance to try their hand at Olympic-themed activities, and a programme of onstage entertainment, including Q&As and medal celebrations with Team GB’s returning athletes.
  Team GB says
  
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• c2c railway closures offers a rare chance to travel over a disused railway track

  28-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Network Rail is warning that the c2c railway between Barking and Fenchurch Street will be closed for six weekends in June and July due to maintenance work on the rail infrastructure.
  However, a special diversion will occur on one day during the closure, which will excite the train nerds.
  c2c train at Fenchurch Street station (c) c2c
  The diversions and closures will take place every weekend in June and the first weekend of July.
  During the closures, services on the Basildon and Rainham lines will
  
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• Former Camden Market street art doors up for sale

  27-05-2024 11:45 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Garden shed owners who love street art are in for a treat, as a load of street-art painted doors salvaged from Camden Lock Village have gone on sale.
  (c) RWB Auctions
  The village was next to the canal and used a load of “christmas market” style sheds to trade from. Then, in 2014, a group of urban artists painted the otherwise plain wooden doors as part of a project organised by The Real Art Of Street Art. The community advocacy group provides walls and other surfaces for artists to p
  
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• Crossrail’s Mark Wild takes over as HS2 boss

  24-05-2024 20:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Mark Wild, who took over the completion of the Crossrail project after it ran into trouble, is taking over as the boss of HS2 railway.
  Mark Wild (c) HS2
  Mark will join HS2 at a pivotal moment in the programme’s delivery. Civil engineering works along the route from London to the West Midlands are reaching their peak, and the focus is shifting to building the infrastructure to operate the railway.
  This new appointment forms part of a series of reforms across the project aimed at bearing dow
  
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• London stations among 50 receiving funding for Step-Free access cost evaluations

  24-05-2024 18:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The government has released funding to support step-free access at railway stations, but at this stage, only to evaluate the costs of adding step-free access in the future.
  The opening day of step-free access at East Grinstead station in Sept 2022
  The Department for Transport (DfT) says that ministers have agreed on the list of 50 additional stations selected for initial feasibility work, which, if successful, will be taken forward as part of the Access for All (AfA) programme.
  The fifty station
  
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• Elizabeth line celebrates two years of service with over 350 million journeys

  24-05-2024 14:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  On the second anniversary of the Elizabeth line’s opening, TfL revealed that it had carried more than 350 million journeys since opening on 24th May 2022.
  Opening Bond Street station (c) ianVisits
  During its first full year of operation, the Elizabeth line saw more than 150 million passenger journeys. In 2023/24, this number dramatically increased to 210 million journeys. On average, the line handles around 700,000 passenger journeys every weekday, with the busiest day recorded on 18th Apr
  
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• Birds: The Living Dinosaurs – This new NHM exhibiton tells their evolutionary tale

  24-05-2024 10:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A declaration that birds are dinosaurs is how an exhibition about birds in a museum famous for its dinosaurs opens, as it tells the story of avian evolution from the dinosaurs into your Christmas lunch.The common idea that dinosaurs died out when an asteroid hit the earth has become considerably more complicated in just the past few decades. Recent discoveries have shown that dinosaurs were already evolving into birds when the asteroid hit, and the impact opened the door for that evolution to ta
  
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• Your chance to nominate a historic figure for a Blue Plaque

  24-05-2024 07:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  If you’ve ever wanted to nominate a notable person or organisation for a Blue Plaque, then now’s your chance, as Historic England is seeking ideas from the public.
  London’s 1000th official blue plaque unveiled in 2023 (c) ianVisits
  To be eligible, the person being nominated needs to have died at least 20 years ago and have at least one building associated with them that survives from the time of their occupancy and where a plaque would be clearly visible from a public highway.
  
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• Grand Central applies to run more trains between London and Yorkshire

  23-05-2024 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The independent train company Grand Central wants to include its services between key destinations in the North East and West Yorkshire and London, and it has filed an application with the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).
  (c) Grand Central
  If the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) and consultations within the rail industry approve the plans, then Grand Central says it will be able to offer increased frequency and new direct journey opportunities.
  The train company wants to run up to two additional dail
  
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• Tickets Alert: Southbank Centre resumes architecture tours

  23-05-2024 14:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Once a semi-regular event before the pandemic, the Southbank Centre is resuming its architectural tours of its buildings.
  Royal Festival Hall
  Love it or hate it, the concrete landscape of one of Europe’s most iconic arts centres has been dividing opinion since it was built in 1967. Have you ever wondered why the Queen Elizabeth Hall is such an irregular shape? Or why it looks as though the concrete is made from wood? Now’s your chance to find out.
  The tours will take place at 11am on
  
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• GTR launches TfL-style weekly cap on pay as you go train tickets

  23-05-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Customers travelling with Southern, Thameslink, and Great Northern are getting TfL-style caps on weekly travel, with a guarantee that pay as you go journeys will never cost more than an equivalent weekly season ticket.
  GTR Key Smartcard (c) Govia Thameslink Railway
  With people working from home at least some of the week, more people are paying for travel on the day they travel rather than buying a weekly (or more) season ticket. That can mean people unexpectedly asked to come into the office on
  
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• London’s Pocket Parks: Norfolk Square Gardens, W2

  23-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  This square (well, long rectangle) in Paddington owes its origins to the same beginnings as nearby Talbot Square around the corner. It sits on top of a filled-in water reservoir built before the area developed with the arrival of the railways.As so much of the area was, it was laid out with tall, stocco-clad buildings surrounding a private garden. Planting aside, the garden also had a very different architectural appearance when built, as there was a large church at the far end.
  All Saints&rsquo
  
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• The Vinyl Factory’s ‘Reverb’ exhibition: A dazzling fusion of light, sound, and art

  22-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  An industrial basement space in central London is thumping and glowing, having been filled with an exhibition exploring the intersection of art and sound.
  It also exposes you to the strangest response to Kraftwerk’s music you will ever see.Based on music released by the independent music and arts group The Vinyl Factory, the exhibition brings together musicians and artists to provide what can best be described as an “experience.”
  Filling the basement is a slightly disorienting
  
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• Two weeks to visit Colindale tube station before rebuilding work starts

  22-05-2024 15:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  You have just two weeks to visit the old Colindale tube station on the Northern line before it closes to be demolished and replaced with a new station.
  Planned new station entrance (c) TfL
  Candidly, it’d be difficult to say the 1960s-era building is particularly notable, but still, after sixty years of service, it will finally go to the great builder’s yards in the sky. That means you have a short time to see it in its current state before all those memories are lost.
  During the clos
  
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• Historic lifeboat returns to London as RNLI marks its 200th anniversary

  22-05-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Two plaques celebrating the RNLI’s 200th anniversary and the lifeboats and people who use them were unveiled in London this week, along with a visit by a historic lifeboat.In the City of London, a new plaque has been placed on Furniture Makers’ Hall, which was where the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) had its first headquarters when it was founded in 1824.
  Although the RNLI is known for its lifesaving work around the coasts of the UK and Ireland, it has strong connections
  
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• Visit the atmospheric Pope’s Grotto

  22-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  In the 1720s, the poet Alexander Pope dug a series of tunnels underneath his house in Twickenham — and 300 years later, they’re open to the public to explore.
  This is Pope’s Grotto.Alexander Pope bought a villa next to the Thames in Twickenham in 1719, and at some point shortly afterwards decided to dig a grotto underneath the house. Atmospheric grottos were a popular folly for the rich to build, but while most are little more than small shallow spaces, Pope dug a long tunnel a
  
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• Back to the Silverlink: London Overground’s past in a new photo exhibition

  21-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Photos of London’s railways and train passengers are filling a camera shop at the moment, offering a look back at pre-Overground services. The link between the photos is that they’re all on stations that were once part of the unlamented Silverlink railway.They’ve all been taken by London-based photographer Simon Wheatley, who has become known for his raw and intimate photographic portrayal of the city and its communities. The photos almost look as if they were taken in dockland
  
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