Route starts at Hyde Park Corner

​

STOP: Park Lane

LOCATION: Marble Arch

​

Park Lane has very humble origins as a rugged track running along the boundaries of farmland. At the time Hyde Park was founded in the 16th century by Henry VIII it was known as Tyburn Lane, after the village of Tyburn, situated on the Tyburn river. A tall brick wall shielded the park from Tyburn Lane as it was originally private grounds for Henry VIII to hunt deer.  By the early 17th century, public access had been granted to the park. Queen Anne and George II can be credited with its further development.

 

Tyburn was the main site of executions in London up until the late 18th century. The Tyburn Tree was a gallows close to where Marble Arch now stands.  It was able to accommodate the hanging of several people all at once. The remains of the gallows are long gone, but there is a plaque marking the historic site.  

 

At this point there was only a scattering of modest dwellings and terraces, and the wall remained during this time – keeping the park firmly out of sight of the few residents of Park Lane (still known as Tyburn Lane).   During the 18th century, the distinguished and wealthy began erecting mansions. This was when Tyburn Lane was renamed Park Lane.

 

STOP: Marylebone station

LOCATION: Marylebone station

 

Marylebone is the smallest of London’s mainline stations and the youngest too – it’s only been open since 1899. Its quaint nature was once described by Sir John Betjeman as resembling 'a public library from Nottingham which has unexpectedly found itself in London'.   

 

During the planning stage, the new line into Marylebone attracted plenty of NIMBYs, the most notable being the chaps at Marylebone Cricket Club who didn’t take kindly to the prospect of steam engines ploughing through their home ground at Lord’s. Fighting this opposition almost bankrupted the railway and is the reason why Marylebone station is much smaller than originally intended. In the end, the club allowed the line to pass through a tunnel just east of Lord’s – although this meant the neighbouring Clergy Orphan School for Girls had to be turfed out instead. 

 

Marylebone has appeared on celluloid many times over the years, most famously in the iconic opening sequence to the 1964 Beatles flick, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, in which a crazed mob chases the Fab Four as they attempt to board a train. 

 

STOP: Mayfair

LOCATION: Grosvenor Square

​

Mayfair was named after the May Fair, an annual event. It took place on the site of today’s popular Shepherd Market. The May Fair was a fortnight long occasion.

 

It gave farmers and other local traders the opportunity to showcase the best of the year’s wares. It allowed them to trade and barter with each other and the public. It also gave local residents an occasion to celebrate the coming of Spring. Making it a key event at the heart of the community. 

 

It was moved to Fair Field by Bow in 1686, and finished entirely in 1764. However, there is a commemorative plaque at its original site in Shepherd Street. 

 

STOP: Regent Street  

LOCATION: All Souls church at junction of Cavendish Place and Regent Street 

 

Named after George, the Prince Regent (later George IV), Regent Street was one of the first planned developments of London.

 

An ordered structure of London streets, replacing the medieval layout, had been planned since just after the Great Fire of London (1666) when Sir Christopher Wren and John Evelyn drew plans for rebuilding the city on the classical formal model. However, after a lack of progress, houses were rebuilt on the old street network anyway.  

 

In 1766, there were complaints of a lack of planning throughout the West End and that it would be useful to construct a thoroughfare linking Marylebone Park (now Regent's Park) with the Prince Regent's Carlton House. The aim was for a suitable road to be in place by 1811, when the lease for Marylebone Park ran out and ownership reverted to the Crown. It was hoped the road could link Pall Mall and the Haymarket, which had declined and became downmarket. 

 

The street was designed by John Nash who envisioned broad, architecturally distinguished thoroughfares and public spaces, and planned to construct a straight boulevard as seen in French cities. However,  this was not possible because of land ownership issues.

 

Nash's final design resulted in a road situated further west than on previous plans, and Nash believed the road would run down a de facto line separating the upper classes and nobility in Mayfair with the working class in Soho and the rookeries of St Giles.

 

STOP: Oxford Street  

LOCATION: Oxford Circus

 

Oxford Street follows the route of a Roman road which linked Silchester with Colchester. 

 

Between the 12th century and late 18th century, it was variously known as Tyburn Road (after the River Tyburn that crossed it north to south), Uxbridge Road (the name still used for the road between Shepherd's Bush and Uxbridge), Worcester Road and Oxford Road. 

 

It became notorious as the route taken by prisoners on their final journey from Newgate Prison to the gallows at Tyburn. Spectators jeered as the prisoners were carted along the road, and could buy rope used in the executions from the hangman in nearby taverns. By about 1729, the road had become known as Oxford Street.  

 

Development began in the 18th century after many surrounding fields were purchased by the Earl of Oxford. The street became popular for entertainment including bear-baiters, theatres and public houses. However, it was not attractive to the middle and upper classes due to the nearby Tyburn gallows and the notorious St Giles rookery.  It wasn’t until the removal of the gallows in 1783, that Oxford Street started to be built up with a mix of residential houses and entertainment.

 

STOP: Great Marlborough Street  

LOCATION: Outside Liberty London

 

In the 16th century this area was farmland and belonged to the Mercer's Company. It was surrendered to Henry VIII in 1536. The street began to be developed in the early 18th century.  It was named after John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, commander of the English Army who won the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, around the time construction started.  

 

Lord Nelson lived here in the 18th century.  

 

A police station was opened at No. 21 in 1793.  This led to the establishment of Marlborough Street Magistrates Court next door in the early 19th century, and became one of the most important magistrates courts in England.   William Gladstone gave evidence in the court against a blackmailer who claimed Gladstone had frequented prostitutes in Leicester Square, while the Marquess of Queensbury's libel trial against Oscar Wilde took place here in 1895.

 

In 1963, Christine Keeler was tried here for attempting to obstruct the course of justice. In the late 1960s, a number of rock stars, including The Rolling Stones stood trial on drugs offences.  John Lennon and Yoko Ono were tried for obscenity here in 1970.  

 

The courts closed in 1998 and are now the Courthouse Hotel.  

 

The street inspired the name of Philip Morris's Marlboro cigarettes. The original factory opened on this street in 1881.  

 

The founder of Liberty’s , Arthur Liberty, was unable to expand or modernise his original shop front on Regent Street due to Crown planning restrictions, so he bought numerous properties on Great Marlborough Street in 1925, and rebuilt them in a Mock Tudor design as an extension of the store.  

 

Originally called Ideal House, Palladium House was built on the corner of Great Marlborough Street and Argyll Street in 1928 by the National Radiator Company of New York and features an Art Deco design inspired by the Paris Exhibition of 1925.  It is a twin of their US HQ in New York (a sky scraper) and black and gold were their corporate colours.   Egyptian influences were very popular in the early 20th century.

 

The square on the Monopoly Board is named after the Marlborough Street Magistrates Court.  The other two orange property squares on the Monopoly board are Bow Street (named after the Bow Street Runners) and Vine Street (named after the Vine Street Police Station), completing a set based around police and law.

 

STOP: Bond Street  

LOCATION: New Bond Street junction with Bruton Street (by Time and Life Building)

 

There is no Bond Street, only New Bond Street and Old Bond Street.  It is the only road to link Oxford Street and Piccadilly.  

 

It is the most expensive of the green-coloured squares on the board that also includes Regent and Oxford Streets.  The three streets are grouped together because of their shared retail history.  

 

Bond Street has the highest density of haute couture stores anywhere in the world, attracting "the rich, the famous, and the simply curious”.  

 

Henry Moore has four sculptures (the 'Time Life screen') embedded high on the wall of no.153 (the old Time and Life Building), which he subsequently attempted to buy back when he felt no one noticed them. 

 

When Moore started on the Time Life Screen he saw it as an exciting problem to solve. He thought the screen should look like it was part of the architecture since it is part of the building. It should feel like a natural continuum. But it also was just a screen, a kind of balustrade with a terrace behind it, not a solid part of the building.  Moore wanted there to be no mistake about that and decided to carve fully 3D; four pieces with a front and a back and sides, all with space around them so the light can come through the stone. He tried to get a turntable for each of the carvings, so they could be turned once a month, each to a different view. However, all he could do was make the openings as large as possible without weakening the structure of the screen.

 

The street also features Allies (which we'll pass shortly), a statue of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt sitting in conversation on a park bench, sculpted to commemorate 50 years since the end of World War II.  

 

STOP: Piccadilly  & Vine Street

LOCATION: Piccadilly junction with Swallow and Vine Street

 

Piccadilly:  In 1612, Robert Baker, a man of enormous wealth built a mansion house to the north of what is now known as Piccadilly Circus. He made his fortune selling picadils to the noble, rich and famous. Picadils are stiff collars favoured by those who hold influence and power. However, he was not popular with the locals, who called the mansion ‘Picadil Hill’. The name stuck.  

 

The Statue of Eros is not actually Eros himself, but his twin brother Anteros. Anteros represents mature, selfless love whilst Eros was the god of romantic, frivolous love. It was the first of its kind to be cast entirely from aluminium.  

 

The statue was originally intended to be a drinking fountain.  As well as the rather obvious naked lad on top, there was a whole lot of of fuss about the 'fountain' beneath too.  The base is too small, and the fountain failed to do what the sculptor intended: create a dome of water with the mythical figure 'floating' on top.  Instead, it splashed everywhere, causing already mucky Victorian streets to look even more filthy.  The cups which were attached to the memorial so people could drink from the water fountain, were nicked almost immediately.

 

Vine Street: Now a dead end that was shortened from a longer road in the early 18th century owing to the building of Regent Street.  From the 18th to mid 20th century it was home to Vine Street Police Station, which grew from a watch-house into one of the busiest police stations in the world. The street is named after The Vine, an 18th-century public house, which in turn may have been named after a vineyard that existed at this location in Roman times.  

 

The station closed in 1940 to be replaced with an integrated West End Central Police Station at Savile Row.  The street was renamed Piccadilly Place. A subsequent rise in foot traffic around the area, and associated crime, led to the station being re-opened in 1966, with the street being renamed back to Vine Street in 1972. The police station finally closed in 1997 and the building was demolished in 2005 for redevelopment.  Shaw Taylor used to broadcast Police 5 from here, with his catch phrase ‘Keep Em Peeled’.

 

Chance (Casino on Coventry Street) - non-stop

 

STOP: Coventry Street & Leicester Square

LOCATION: By McDonalds Leicester Square

 

Coventry Street is one of the yellow property squares on the British Monopoly board. The other squares are Leicester Square and Piccadilly, both of which connect to it. All three streets share a common theme of entertainment and nightlife.  

 

Coventry Street was constructed in 1681 as a thoroughfare between the two places and was named after the secretary of state to Charles II, Henry Coventry.  The street was designed for commercial and entertainment purposes, rather than residential. For much of the 18th and early 19th century there were a number of gambling houses along the street, contributing to a shady and downmarket character.  

 

The Trocadero has been an entertainment centre on Coventry Street since 1744 when a ‘real tennis’ court was built. Then it was redesigned as a number of assembly rooms called the Argyll Rooms but it acquired a notorious reputation for prostitution, and consequently closed in 1878. The current facade dates from 1882, when it was a music hall.  The entire development was sold to J. Lyon's & Co in 1895. Having been part of the Lyons restaurant complex and shops for much of the 20th century, it is now a shopping centre.

 

Leicester Square: Until the end of the 17th Century, Leicester Square was a popular place for duelling. In 1699, Richard Coote, the First Earl of Bellomont, killed a man in a duel allegedly over the affections of a woman. He later became the colonial governor of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York.  

 

Karl Marx lived here in 1848 after several failed German revolutions. He stayed in a German hotel in the square and was visited often by his fellow revolutionaries.  

 

One of the earliest maps of London made between 1570 and 1605, shows that Leicester Square was a place for drying clothes. Women would lay the clothing out in the grass to dry while nearby cows grazed.  

 

The tube route from Leicester Square to Covent Garden is the most popular route for London Tourists. However, it’s actually possible to travel the distance faster on foot.  

 

The modern theatre ticket booth actually conceals a massive substation. Enormous transformers about three stories down reduce the Nation Grid’s 132,000 volt power supply and dispenses power to Leicester Square, Covent Garden, and Piccadilly Circus.

 

STOP: Pall Mall

LOCATION: bottom of Haymarket

 

In the 16th and 17th centuries in some London streets it was popular to play a game which involved hitting a ball with a mallet the length of the street and through an iron hoop at the end. Two London streets, Pall Mall and The Mall (where King Charles II enjoyed playing), eventually took their name from the game.  It comes from the French "paille maille", meaning ball & mallet, or perhaps from the Italian equivalent "pallamaglio".  Some sources describe "pall-mall" as the precursor of both croquet and golf, as it resembles the former for the equipment used and the latter for the nature of the game.  

 

When the game fell out of fashion the streets in which it was played sometimes evolved into shopping areas, and gave its name to the term "shopping mall". 

 

Pall Mall became known for high-class shopping in the 18th century, and gentlemen's clubs in the 19th. The Reform, Athenaeum and Travellers Clubs are still here. The War Office was based on Pall Mall during the second half of the 19th century, and the Royal Automobile Club's headquarters have been on the street since 1908. 

 

On the Monopoly board, Pall Mall is alongside Whitehall and Northumberland Avenue. All three streets converge at Trafalgar Square. 

 

STOP: Northumberland Avenue

LOCATION: Outside Sherlock Holmes pub

 

Formed in 1491, the road has had a chequered history and at one time was owned by Henry VIII.  By the 18th century it was primarily used as a thoroughfare between markets in the West End and the wharfs along the Thames and was usually clogged with carts.  Then in 1874 the whole area was demolished and Northumberland Avenue was formed, principally to house hotels.  Planning permissions at the time forbade hotels to be taller than the width of the road they were on, which is why the road is so wide.  By the 1930s, the hotels on Park Lane were becoming more popular and the hotels here started to close. 

 

The Northumberland Arms was renamed the Sherlock Holmes in 1957, and contains numerous Holmes-related exhibits from the 1951 Festival of London.   

 

Thomas Edison's British headquarters, Edison House, was situated on the road. Several prominent personalities of the late 19th century had their voices recorded there by phonograph, including Prime Minister William Gladstone and poet Robert Browning. In 1890, retired military trumpeter Martin Lanfried was recorded at Edison House using a bugle believed to have been sounded at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854.

 

Income Tax (HMRC - first building after Parliament Square) - non-stop

 

STOP: Whitehall  

LOCATION: by Horse Guards Parade

 

The name was taken from the Palace of Whitehall that was the residence of Kings Henry VIII through to William III, before it burned down in 1698. Only the Banqueting House (opposite) has survived and was the first Renaissance building in London.  

 

Oliver Cromwell moved here in 1647. Two years later, Charles I was carried through Whitehall on the way to his trial at Westminster Hall. He made a brief speech there before being beheaded at 2pm  - the black mark on the clock above Horse Guards Parade indicating the time of execution. 

 

Cromwell died at the Palace of Whitehall in 1658.  In 1661 (on the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles I and after the restoration), his body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, and was subjected to a posthumous execution. His head was cut off and displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall until 1685.

 

Afterwards, it was owned by various people and it was publicly exhibited several times before being buried beneath the floor of the chapel at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (his university), in 1960. The exact position has not been publicly disclosed, but a plaque marks the approximate location.

 

STOP: Trafalgar Square

LOCATION: Whitehall intersection with Trafalgar Square

 

This statue of Charles I was cast in 1633. The statue faces down Whitehall towards his place of execution.  Following the English Civil War the statue was sold to a metalsmith to be broken down, but he hid it until the Restoration. It was installed here in 1675, and the elaborately carved plinth is contemporary.  

 

Its location is on the former site of the most elaborate of the Eleanor crosses erected by Edward I, which had stood for three and a half centuries until 1647. The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve tall and lavishly decorated stone monuments topped with crosses erected in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had them built between 1291 and 1295 in memory of his beloved wife Eleanor. The King and Queen had been married for 36 years and she stayed by the King’s side through his many travels.

 

While on a royal progress in 1290, she died in the East Midlands. The crosses, erected in her memory, marked the nightly resting-places along the route taken when her body was carried to Westminster Abbey for burial.  Only three of the original crosses remain (Geddington, Hardingstone and Waltham Cross). There’s a replica of the most elaborate one, which stood here, outside Charing Cross station. It was erected in 1865.

 

Charing Cross is used to define the centre of London and distances are measured from this point.     

 

STOP: Strand

LOCATION: Zimbabwe House, on the left shortly after Charing Cross station

 

The road's name comes from the Old English ‘strond’, meaning the edge of a river, as it originally ran alongside the north bank of the River Thames. It connects East Minster (St Pauls in the City of London) with West Minster (Westminster Abbey). 

​

Very much an upper class area between the 12th and 17th centuries, with many historically important mansions being built between Strand and the river. They started to be demolished from the 17th century and the only one remaining is the rebuilt Somerset House.

 

The aristocracy moved to the West End during the 17th century, and Strand became known for its coffee shops, restaurants and taverns. The street was a centre point for theatre and music hall during the 19th century, and several venues remain here. 

 

Waterloo Bridge was originally going to be called Strand Bridge.  It was renamed for its official opening which was on the second anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Waterloo. 

 

Zimbabwe House used to be the British Medical Association building. Even before they were revealed in 1908, the 18 naked figures — male and female — stoked a fuss. An anti-vice group discovered one of the plaster cast models , and orchestrated an unsuccessful campaign against the statues' installation.  And though many wanted the statues gone, the BMA stood fast, and the rude bits remained.

 

For almost 30 years they brandished themselves to the millions who walked up and down the Strand.  Then, on 10 June 1937, there was an incident. A passer-by was struck by a falling piece (a head, not a penis) from one of the statues. Acid rain is partly to blame for the statues' state. Even a few years after they were installed, parts had started to erode. It's likely this which contributed to the loosening of that rogue head.  

 

The truth is, the building's new owner — the Rhodesian High Commission, hated the statues. And they used the mishap as an excuse to obliterate them.  Anything 'at risk' of coming loose was chiselled away. 

 

STOP: Bow Street

LOCATION: opposite Young Dancer statue at junction with Floral Street

 

Bow Street was developed in 1633 and for quite a while in the 19th century was simply an extension of Covent Garden market, selling fruit and veg.  The street was named Bow Street in 1638 after its basic shape.   

 

The forerunner of the modern police force, the Bow Street Runners, were founded there by novelist and dramatist Henry Fielding around 1750.  Bow Street magistrates court has recently re-opened as a hotel.

 

The Royal Opera House is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present theatre dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, making it the third largest in London.  

 

TOILETS IN LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS

​

STOP: Fleet Street

LOCATION: Outside St Dunstan's in the West church

 

Fleet Street is named after the River Fleet, which runs from Hampstead to the Thames.  You can tell by the lie of the land we’re on the slope of the valley.  The Fleet was a large navigable river, with a substantial bridge crossing it. 

 

The street became known for printing and publishing at the start of the 16th century, and that became the dominant trade so that by the 20th century most British national newspapers operated from here. Much of that industry moved out in the 1980s after News International set up cheaper manufacturing premises in Wapping.  

 

The street is mentioned in several works by Charles Dickens and is the home of the fictional murderer Sweeney Todd.  

 

Above the entrance to the old school-house of St Dunstan's is a statue of Queen Elizabeth I provided for the then new Ludgate city gate in 1586. It was moved here following the gate's demolition in 1776. It is London’s oldest statue and the only one remaining that was carved in Queen Elizabeth’s reign. 

 

Electric Company (Tate Modern/power station on Holland Street) - non-stop

 

STOP: Jail

LOCATION: Marshalsea prison - Tabard Street by St George's Churchyard Gardens

 

The Marshalsea Prison dates from the 14th century and was not finally demolished until 1842.  All that’s left is a sturdy-looking brick wall enclosing the park, which itself is built on the burial grounds of St George the Martyr.  

 

The first Marshalsea was notorious. Conditions were famously squalid, unhygienic and, eventually, deadly.   In 1729 it was the subject of a national scandal when a young architect, Robert Castell, fell into debt and was thrown into the Marshalsea. He was placed into a cell and forced to share a bed with a man dying of smallpox.  His protests were met with silence and Robert died within a month.

 

In that same year a parliamentary committee reported that 300 inmates had starved to death in a period of 3 months, and 8 – 10 were dying each day during the warmer, summer months.  And these weren’t ‘criminals’ as we’d consider today. The only crime they had committed was not being able to pay off debts.  This was shockingly common, and particularly in the early 19th century because of the South Sea Bubble crash of 1720. Many Londoners tumbled into debt and then into debtors prison.

 

In the 1700s over half of England’s prison population were in jail for debt.  But how do you pay your debts in jail? A fair question and one the privately-owned prisons of the time seemed less than concerned by. In fact, in prison you had to pay for everything. Pay to have the luxury of your chains removed on arrival, pay for bedding, pay for laundry. Even if you died, your family had to pay to have your body released.  And a debtor could have his/her whole family living with them, although he other family members were free to leave to work during they.

 

Free Parking (unusual in London) - Willow Walk, non-stop

 

STOP: Old Kent Road

LOCATION: Mandela Way, junction with Old Kent Road

 

Old Kent Road is the first property square on the British Monopoly board, priced at £60 and forming the brown set along with the similarly working-class Whitechapel Road. It is the only square on the board in South London and south of the Thames.

 

It began with the Romans — the Old Kent Road is part of Watling Street, which led from Dover to Londinium and across Britain to Wales. The Canterbury Pilgrims, Henry V returning victorious from Agincourt, Jake Cade leading his doomed rebellion, Charles II returning from exile to take up the throne. All have used the road.

 

STOP: Whitechapel Road

LOCATION: Altab Ali park, Adler Street junction with Whitechapel Road

 

The original White Chapel stood on this site between 1250 and 1286.  It was a simple, lime washed, stone rubble chapel.  Hence the name.   It was rebuilt in 1329 as St Mary Matfelon.   The church took a direct hit in the Blitz and stood derelict until lightening split the tower in 1952 and it had to be demolished.  The last church became famous for having an open air pulpit, so the preacher could preach to a crowd larger than could fit into the church.   There’s a similar pulpit surviving on a chapel in Lambeth Walk.

 

STOP: Fenchurch Street station

LOCATION: outside the station on Fenchurch Place

 

The area around Fenchurch Street is one of the oldest inhabited parts of London; the name "Fenchurch" derives from the Latin 'faenum' (meaning hay) and refers to hay markets in the area.

 

The station was the first to be built inside the City of London.  The original building opened on 20 July 1841, serving the London and Blackwall Railway, replacing a nearby terminus at Minories that had opened a year earlier.  Originally it had two platforms connected via a stairway to the booking hall.  Steam locomotives did not use the station until 1849 because before this time trains were dragged uphill from Blackwall to Minories, and ran to Fenchurch Street via their own momentum. The reverse journey eastwards required a manual push from railway staff.  William Marshall's railway bookstall established at the station in 1841 was the first to be opened in the City of London.

 

Fenchurch Street is one of four railway stations on the Monopoly board, alongside Liverpool Street, Marylebone and King's Cross. All four were termini of LNER services when Victor Watson redesigned the game for the British market in 1936.

 

Liverpool Street station - non-stop

 

Liverpool Street station was built as the new London terminus of the Great Eastern Railway (GER) which served Norwich and King's Lynn.  The GER had been formed from the merger of several railway companies, inheriting Bishopsgate as its London terminus.

 

Bishopsgate was inadequate for the company's passenger traffic - its Shoreditch location was in the heart of one of the poorest slums in London and hence badly situated for the City of London commuters the company wanted to attract.  As a goods depot, Bishopsgate handled very large volumes of goods from the eastern ports and was arranged over three levels with turntables and hoists allowing railway wagons to be moved individually around the station for loading and unloading. Incoming goods could be stored in the warehouse on site or transferred directly to road vehicles for onward transportation to their destinations.   It was destroyed by fire in 1964. 

 

The station was subsequently closed and the upper-level structures were largely demolished. Over the next 40 years much of the site became derelict. Following an extended period of planning, the entire site was demolished in 2003-04, with the exception of a number of Grade II listed structures: ornamental gates on Shoreditch High Street and the remaining 850 feet (260 m) of the so-called "Braithwaite Viaduct", one of the oldest railway structures in the world and the second-oldest in London.

 

Community chest - Shelter/charity - big sign on window - immediate after turn from Whitecross Street onto Old Street - non-stop

 

Water Works - New River Company (junction Amwell Street and Margery Street) - non-stop

 

The New River is an artificial waterway opened in 1613 to supply London with fresh drinking water taken from the River Lea and from Chadwell Springs and, originally, Amwell Springs as well as other springs and wells along its course.  The expense and engineering challenges of the project—it relied on gravity to allow the water to flow, carefully following the contours of the terrain from Ware into London, and dropping around just five inches per mile.

 

The project faced considerable opposition from landowners who feared that the New River would reduce the value of their farmland (they argued that floods or overflowing might create quagmires that could trap livestock); others were concerned at the possible disruption to road transport networks between Hertfordshire and the capital.

 

The project nearly foundered when a few landowners flatly refused to agree to allow the river across their land. Eventually King James agreed to pay half the project's expenses in return for a 50% shareholding; such backing quickly silenced the scheme's critics.

 

STOP: The Angel Islington & Pentonville Road

LOCATION: Pentonville Road / City Road traffic lights

 

Angel: In the early 16th century, a building in this area of London on the Great North Road was known as the Sheepcote. It was named after lands belonging to St John's Priory. The building was being used as an inn by the end of the 16th century and was known as the Angel by 1614.

 

The inn took its name from the Angel of the Annunciation which appeared on the sign. The Angel Inn became a useful stop when travelling to the City of London, as the rural area outside it was considered dangerous, with travellers having armed escorts to Islington. Despite its name, and common association with Islington, the grounds of the inn were actually in Clerkenwell. The building no longer exists, but there is a Wetherpsoon pub that now carries the name.

 

In the game it is the third-cheapest property on the board, reflecting the downmarket state of Islington through most of the 20th century until its gentrification in the 1980s.  Victor Watson, of British manufacturers John Waddington Ltd, and his wife, Marge, decided to include the property on the board whilst taking tea at the Lyons Tea Rooms here.  It is the only site on the board named after a building.  It is part of the light blue group with Pentonville Road and Euston Road.

 

Pentonville Road:  What is now Pentonville Road was built as the final section of the New Road in 1756, connecting the City of London to the western suburbs, so that coach traffic could avoid Central London. At the time, the route now covered by Pentonville Road was mostly fields, with Battle Bridge occupying the space where King's Cross now is.  The road was designed as part of Pentonville, a new suburb away from the city and became a local hub for manufacturing in the area.

 

There was some debate over the final route of the road; the original plan to run straight through fields owned by the Skinners Company and the New River Company was rejected in favour of the route further north. As it was always intended to be a main road, a coach service began in 1798 between Paddington and Bank but was quickly withdrawn. The road was turnpiked in 1830 and renamed Pentonville Road after landowner Henry Penton in 1857.

 

STOP: Kings Cross station & Euston Road  

LOCATION: Where Angel Street turns onto Euston Road

 

King’s Cross: The area around the station was previously a village known as Battle Bridge. It was an ancient crossing of the River Fleet, originally known as Broad Ford, later Bradford Bridge. The river flowed along what is now Pancras Road (between the two stations) until it was rerouted underground in 1825. 

 

The name "Battle Bridge" is linked to tradition that this was the site of a major battle between the Romans and the Celtic British Iceni tribe led by Boudica. According to folklore, King's Cross is the site of Boudica's final battle and some sources say she is buried under one of the platforms. Platforms 9 and 10 have been suggested as possible sites. Boudica's ghost is also reported to haunt passages under the station, around platforms 8–10.  

 

King's Cross station was built in 1851–52.

 

The station features in the Harry Potter books as the starting point of the Hogwarts Express. The train uses a secret Platform 9 3⁄4 accessed through the brick wall barrier between platforms 9 and 10.  In fact, platforms 9 and 10 are in a separate building from the main station and are separated by two intervening tracks.  Instead, the brick roof-support arches between platforms 4 and 5 were redressed by the film crew and used to represent the brick wall that does not exist between the real platforms 9 and 10.

 

Euston Road: part of the New Road bypass - see Pentonville Road above.

 

The ride ends at the cafe in Russell Square