Getting around in London generally

...and choose my means of getting there, and this is where boats come in. The obvious thing to do, now that I’m a “twirly”*, is to wait till 9.30 am and buy a Travelcard, affording use of all Underground, service buses and national rail services within the zones that I have paid for.

* “Twirly” – as in “Am I twirly to buy a travel card?” Geddit?

Note: a Travel card does not ...
...Thames Barrage will stop this getting any worse for several years to come. Even before the awareness of global warming and its effect on water levels, it was widely acknowledged that London is sinking under the weight of its buildings and as water is extracted from the aquafers beneath the clay. I have even seen it mooted that we start moving Parliament to Hampstead before it’s too late! And so much nearer for the luvvies to get to work, too!
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I’m a Londoner, so it may seem a little odd that I’m writing about river-boats, something intended for tourists, but having worked there for 30 years, you always put sightseeing on the back burner as something you can do any time, and by implication never get round to!

Then I became one of 10’s of thousands of people who can say that they USED to work for BT, and suddenly going to London is no longer a daily grind, in fact I don’t suppose I go “up there” more than twice a month now, and when I do it’s for some leisure reason.

I have a friend whose job has taken him to Greenwich, so I occasionally arrange to meet up for a wet lunch in one of Greenwich’s pubs.

Having “all the time in the world”, means that I can pick and choose my means of getting there, and this is where boats come in. The obvious thing to do, now that I’m a “twirly”*, is to wait till 9.30 am and buy a Travelcard, affording use of all Underground, service buses and national rail services within the zones that I have paid for.

* “Twirly” – as in “Am I twirly to buy a travel card?” Geddit?

Note: a Travel card does not apply to “prestige” transport like Round-London sightseeing tours or Airbuses to Heathrow. HOWEVER, what a Travelcard does get you, is into London AND a discount of 1/3rd off the cost of a trip to Greenwich on a pleasure boat. So here’s how I get there.

Boarding the Piccadilly Line at Osterley in west London means that I have to buy a Zones 1-4 Travel card, costing £4.30. Some might think that this is expensive but when you consider the amount of services you COULD be using for that money, it’s peanuts. You can pay EVEN MORE for a day rover of the Isle of Wight, a similar-sized area, but with b****r-all routes available.

An alternative, particularly in hot weather, is to get the South-West Trains service from Isleworth to Waterloo – the same ticket applies. These are only half-hourly, so you need to know the timetable, whereas the Underground is more or less “walk-on”

The nearest convenient (most westerly) pier operating boats to Greenwich is Westminster, just outside the eponymous Underground station. This can be reached by changing at Green Park onto the newly extended Jubilee Line to Westminster itself. Also you can come from Waterloo by the same line.

Westminster is a good pier to pick if you have kids in tow, as the subway from the ticket hall of the station brings you right out on the Embankment, a few yards along from the boat operator’s ticket offices. No nasty roads to cross. Don’t say BNibbles doesn’t care about these things!

One of the boat companies is known as City Cruises, and they operate a fleet of near-identical and reassuringly recent catamarans in red and white livery.

Other operators may have bigger and glitzier boats, but not whole fleets of them. The “Silver” fleet is an example. Their largest boat appears to be the Silver Sturgeon, looking suspiciously like an escapee from cruising the Volga (maybe that word "Sturgeon" is a clue). Other "Silvers" are somewhat smaller in a variety of sizes. A City Cruises boat can always be depended on to shift the same amount of queue each time.

THE COST

City Cruises operate from Westminster, Tower Pier and Greenwich. Other companies use Charing Cross, another Victoria Embankment location – I was about to say “in a riverside location” but then I suppose they’d have to be, wouldn’t they? (By the way, why is it always me who ends up asking rhetorical questions?)

Westminster to Greenwich (Adult single) costs £6 less £2 on production of a valid Travel card. A return would be £7.50 less discount. Even better, if you have your nuclear family threatening a wallet meltdown, is a Family Day Rover ticket for £19.50, allowing you to jump on and off their boats at Tower Pier, Westminster and Greenwich all day.

Of course, you don’t need to book returns, since Greenwich (Cutty Sark) is now served by the Docklands Light Railway (Lewisham branch), which is easily covered by your Zones 1-4 Travel card, and Tower Pier is also only a short walk from Tower Hill District & Circle Station in Zone 1.

THE BOATS

The “cats” have an open upper deck and a fully enclosed air-conditioned lower deck with grey-tinted picture windows. In summer, the usual rush to grab upstairs seats in predictable, but fear not, if you have to sit downstairs at the front pointy bit (note the lack of nautical terms), the windows are so heavily raked back that you can still look upwards as you pass under Tower Bridge etc.

The on-board bar up at the blunt end is licensed, but don’t expect this to be the cheapest watering hole in London.

The ride is very comfortable, and the boat just seems to shrug off oncoming waves with disdain. I suspect that it’s these boats that CREATE the largest wakes, rather than suffer from them!

If you’re lucky, you’ll get one of their “unofficial” commentaries from one of the diamond geezers upstairs. These contain a lot of information put in a very amusing way, but don’t take it all as gospel! Gaw'd bless yer, guvnor!

WHAT TO SEE EN ROUTE

From the top deck, you will immediately be aware of Big Ben towering over you at the back non-pointy bit (not strictly true, Big Ben is only the bell, but you know what I mean).

Over to your right, and equally imposing is the London Eye standing suspended over the river at some 140-odd metres high and rotating at a dizzy 2 r.p.H! Owned by BA, this is thought by many to be their most profitable route!

As the boat sets off into mid-stream, you find yourself approaching what many people call Charing Cross Railway Bridge, but officially, it’s Hungerford Bridge. Not the most prepossessing structure you ever saw, but useful in so much as it also carries a public footpath from the Waterloo area to the Victoria Embankment. The remodelled Charing Cross station starts immediately as the bridge ends at a raised level. The ground slopes upwards quite steeply alongside the station (Villiers St.), allowing the station forecourt on the Strand to be at ground level

The river now bends right, with the Royal Festival Hall on the south bank and Cleopatra’s Needle on your left. The latter was presented to the nation to commemorate Nelson's victory at the Battle Of The Nile. The Needle nearly didn’t make it to London at all. In towing it from the Med, having been encased in a floating caisson in Egypt, the tug lost the towrope in a storm, and for a while it was presumed lost permanently. As you can see, it was found!

When the tide is high, you realise just how close London is to being inundated by Old Father Thames. The Lions Heads that adorn the Embankment wall are said to be “having a drink” when this occurs. I always think that, at high tide, the river seems quite menacing, and it seems to be humouring man's attempts to tame it. Hopefully, the Thames Barrage will stop this getting any worse for several years to come. Even before the awareness of global warming and its effect on water levels, it was widely acknowledged that London is sinking under the weight of its buildings and as water is extracted from the aquafers beneath the clay. I have even seen it mooted that we start moving Parliament to Hampstead before it’s too late! And so much nearer for the luvvies to get to work, too!

As you pass under the graceful and uncluttered 1930’s design of Waterloo Bridge, look for the grey hangar doors by the north kerb under the first left hand arch. These mark the spot where trams (remember them?) turned in off the Embankment into the Kingsway Subway (now Holborn Underpass) to emerge up a ramp in Southampton Row (this bit is still there complete with cobbles and rails).

The Victoria Embankment is a man-made reclamation of mud-flats built in (surprise) Victorian times to house sewers, drains, the Circle Line and to “tidy up” the river bank in one fell swoop. Before this, buildings like Somerset House and King’s College gave directly onto the riverbank, evidenced by the arched “Watergates” still to be seen in their facades. This is also why The Strand is so named. Before the Embankment was built, it was the nearest road to the foreshore. (Strand = Beach).

The stretch of river between Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges isn’t particularly rich in “rubber-necking” opportunities, but you may be interested by a number of WW1 ships moored along the north bank. These are to all intents and purposes clubhouses for the various Naval Reserves amongst others. This area used to house Captain Scott’s ship, but this has gone home to Dundee, I seem to recall.

The other bank is also home the London Weekend TV Studios. Look out also for the "OXO" tower building, now redeveloped and topped out with a Conran restaurant with prices to match the height of the tower. Our guide informed us that the familiar "OXO" set into the stained glass windows was only allowed after some slick manoeuvring during the original construction. Apparently, planning permission was not given for waterfront buildings if the design contained a company logo. The architects/builders managed to persuade the authorities that it was just a pattern that LOOKED like OXO! Believe that? Hmm, not sure.

The Blackfriars Bridge to Southwark Bridge section has a richer harvest though.

You’ve got the Tate Modern gallery on your right (“they HAD to make it free….. it’s full of modern art” opined our guide, nailing HIS artistic colours firmly to the mast!), built from the shell of the old Bankside power station.

Dead ahead you’ve got THAT bridge, you know, the one that sways! Once it’s sorted, it will provide a splendid link between the steps up to St Paul’s Cathedral and the art gallery, with wide river vistas as you go.

Southwark Bridge is nothing to write home about, and it has been acknowledged that it was a something of a planning error, in so much that its approaches on the City side ar far too constricted to be of any widespread use.You only have to look at the way the road seems to disappear into a canyon of buildings to see what they mean. Just before going under, look to your right and you will see the replica Globe Theatre, brain-child of the late Sam Wannaker – “They put on Shakespeare and stuff” says the man on the mike.

Emerging from the gloom, and still to your right is Clink Street, home of the prison that gave its name to prisons. Through a gap, you will also gain a glimpse of Southwark Cathedral, obviously London's smallest, since I've seen grander parish churches!

Not including railway lines, the next bridge is of course, London Bridge, a new-ish structure replacing the old one, which was demolished stone by stone to re-emerge in Lake Havasu City USA. Actually, they only bothered with the facing stones, the infill is 100% pure US of A. There have been many apochryphal stories about the Americans being under the impression they were getting Tower Bridge, but I suspect that's all they are - myths.

Several years ago, this bridge was hit broadside by a Royal Naval vessel whose Captain had turned down the offer of a river pilot whilst manoeuvring to come alongside the HMS Belfast. Misjudging the upstream current of the incoming tide, he miscalculated the elbow room needed for the manoeuvre and whacked the bridge (with HIS bridge!). Needless to say, he didn't endear himself to the Sea Lords, and had all his Air-Miles rescinded.

The HMS Belfast is now an official floating museum of naval history, and is moored as far upstream as a tall ship can come, since London Bridge is too low for any further forays. This stretch of the Thames is known as The Pool Of London and was home to a myriad wharves until ships got too large to handle. The Belfast is also used as the mooring for visiting ships, like cruise liners. It must be a real thrill to arrive slap-bang in the middle of London by ship, especially since they would have to raise Tower Bridge for you, and I got quite envious of the idea. To your right, you will see a curious circular building under construction. This is the new London Assembly building, County Hall having been sold when Mrs. T closed down the Metropolitan Counties. Funny how they were all Labour controlled. The new structure has been referred to as "Ken's Beehive".

Just before Tower Bridge is the pier itself, where you may break your journey (with a rover ticket). This is located immediately by the Tower Of London, which needs little introduction from me. I haven’t been there for years (as a result of the aforementioned “I can go there anytime” approach) but I suspect it’s somewhat more full of Japanese tourists these days, posing in front of everything – yes, why do they do that more than other visitors? Does it fulfil some need to prove they’ve been there, like train spotters crossing off numbers in their little books?

The Bridge is one tourist attraction I have visited in the recent past. Many people may be unaware that it’s a museum in its own right, with access to those pedestrian walkways at the high level. Displays of the proposed designs, and the history of its construction pale into insignificance, when compared to the view at the top. It may not be the tallest building around, but the uninterrupted nature of the view is something else.

Also, your entry ticket includes a visit to the south side gate-house, under which is the beautifully preserved steam engine that used to provide the hydraulic pressure to work the bridge.

After Tower Bridge, the river suddenly seems to be a lot wider, and less characterful (unless you like loft conversions, that is.) “Only one left at £2.5 million” reads one sign. Hold on, I’ll just empty the other pocket. Damn, not quite enough! I prefer barn conversions myself. Take my place – used to be a house, now it’s a barn.

At this point I settle back with a little something from the bar and a spot of bird-watching. Since the Thames is a lot cleaner these days, it is not uncommon to see cormorants diving for eels and other prey. You see the occasional shag too. (People really should close their patio doors)

As we approach Greenwich, we swing right around the Isle of Dogs, the lion’s share of the Docklands Development zone. The water-borne approach to this area looks more like Singapore every time!

As you dock at Greenwich, look for the pier manager. Ian, I think his name is. He seems to have a never-ending supply of eclectic bow ties!

Now all you need is a pub, but I’ll keep Greenwich up my sleeve for another op - that's if I haven't blown my chances by writing something general about London already.

Anyway, my first port of call would be Goddard's Pie Shop for a Steak & Kidney pie with gravy and chips - all for £2.50. Don't worry if your from north of Watford, they do mushy peas as well, and as I was last leaving there, I noticed a hand-written message saying that they were licensed for sales of beer and cider at reasonable (for London) prices. Oh bliss.

 

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