Spooks On The Tube: Ghosts Of London Underground

Erinaceus said:
I worked in London for 23 years. Twenty one years later and I've not been back.
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I went back to our London (South) house with my youngest Sister years after we moved to Scotland, just to have a look to see what it looked like now. We got a bit of a shock. We happened to arrive just as a young newly married bride arrived back from her wedding day, to get changed before going on honeymoon.
Had a little chat with her, then she went inside. We noticed that where there once was a lovely little front garden stocked with all the cottage garden type flowers, was now concreted over to park two cars on.
Where there was once a lovely Virginian Creeper covering the old London bricks is now a bare brick wall.
Was glad to walk away with just the memories that came flooding back of how it used to be ~ the family of three black Rats which happened to live under the still standing Anderson Shelter, in the back garden ~ our pets, we used to see three pairs of black eyes peering out staring at us from the safety inside their nest hole, usually in the evenings, as well as the remains of the scores of the old, used carbon-cores from the spent radio batteries ~ and brown ale bottles left from our Grandparents day's there, whilst out in the back garden playing with lumps of garden soil, when I was just a young'un!
 
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Erinaceus said:
I worked in London for 23 years. Twenty one years later and I've not been back.
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I sympathise!
With me, it was only around 7 years in London. By then I'd had quite enough of very long working days and a horrible commute (I still shudder when I think of the Northern Line - and that has nothing to do with spooks) and I happily took a cut in salary to work within an easy cycle ride of home.
We still live only 30 mins or so on the train to Waterloo, but I very rarely go to London these days. Haven't been there since before Covid.
 
staticgirl said:
Pray for me. My office has moved to the East of London and I will have to commute there from Watford.....
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Tempest63 said:
Sounds like heaven to me. Once I retire I hope I never have to visit London ever again.
All of my London born and bred family have either ascended to the great hamlet in the sky or moved out to small places miles from anywhere. I will have absolutely no need to return to London
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I do like the quiet life, @Tempest63 but I can be prone to boredom and it would be nice to wake up some days and think 'I fancy going to...(the cinema/an art gallery/a cafe/the theatre/some shops); and not have to get in the car and slog thirty odd miles. The distance means that I often 'waste' days just doing nothing then feel guilty because I could have gone around a library or to the aforementioned cinema/theatre/gallery etc, but instead all I've done is sit and watch YouTube.

It's nice to be able to have a change every now and then. But I couldn't live in London again for any length of time.
 
catseye said:
I do like the quiet life, @Tempest63 but I can be prone to boredom and it would be nice to wake up some days and think 'I fancy going to...(the cinema/an art gallery/a cafe/the theatre/some shops); and not have to get in the car and slog thirty odd miles. The distance means that I often 'waste' days just doing nothing then feel guilty because I could have gone around a library or to the aforementioned cinema/theatre/gallery etc, but instead all I've done is sit and watch YouTube.

It's nice to be able to have a change every now and then. But I couldn't live in London again for any length of time.
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I think I’ve got a fine balance at the moment regarding London. I work from home 3 days a week ,so only travel into the smoke 2 days – which really is enough for me.

London has changed so much these past few years, especially the square mile.
 
Dick Turpin said:
I think I’ve got a fine balance at the moment regarding London. I work from home 3 days a week ,so only travel into the smoke 2 days – which really is enough for me.

London has changed so much these past few years, especially the square mile.
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I am happy to work in the square mile, but do my best to not set foot beyond…”There Be Dragons”
 
What are the actual boundaries of the city of London anyway….??. Some people have some funny ideas about it. I know some who think the city extends even into commercial street, which is nonsense.

Walk past the Aldgate pump and you are in the east end, not the city (technically at least)

Personally, I’ve thought that the actual square mile are those places that lie inside the locations of the old city gates. Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate, Moorgate and Newgate.
 
Dick Turpin said:
What are the actual boundaries of the city of London anyway….??. Some people have some funny ideas about it. I know some who think the city extends even into commercial street, which is nonsense.

Walk past the Aldgate pump and you are in the east end, not the city (technically at least)

Personally, I’ve thought that the actual square mile are those places that lie inside the locations of the old city gates. Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate, Moorgate and Newgate.
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Crazy to think that Soho was once a royal hunting park
 
Dick Turpin said:
What are the actual boundaries of the city of London anyway….??. Some people have some funny ideas about it. I know some who think the city extends even into commercial street, which is nonsense.

Walk past the Aldgate pump and you are in the east end, not the city (technically at least)

Personally, I’ve thought that the actual square mile are those places that lie inside the locations of the old city gates. Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate, Moorgate and Newgate.
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It's hard to make out on the OS map (though you can look at it on a PC using the Ordnance Survey layer of Bing Maps) but there is a boundary running through Aldgate and Moorgate that looks about right.
 
Indeed so Paul. Even when the Royal London Hospital was built, which is in Whitechapel it was surrounded by fields.

Also, Whitechapel’s hay market lasted until quite recent times which is an indication of how rural the east end once was.

Strange thing this, but when I was growing up in Shoreditch, the older people would talk about “going up London” if ever they needed to visit the City for any reason. That would always confuse me ‘cos I’d think well we are in London, so what do they mean by going up London.?
 
Dick Turpin said:
Indeed so Paul. Even when the Royal London Hospital was built, which is in Whitechapel it was surrounded by fields.

Also, Whitechapel’s hay market lasted until quite recent times which is an indication of how rural the east end once was.

Strange thing this, but when I was growing up in Shoreditch, the older people would talk about “going up London” if ever they needed to visit the City for any reason. That would always confuse me ‘cos I’d think well we are in London, so what do they mean by going up London.?
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I've always wanted to know where the closest working farm to the Square Mile is nowadays? Not a country park, city farm or whatever but an actual farmhouse with barns and fields. I know the countryside starts so suddenly, for example when you head down into Sussex on the Brighton railway line you go through a certain tunnel and it is goodbye suburban sprawl and hello woods and fields.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
I've always wanted to know where the closest working farm to the Square Mile is nowadays? Not a country park, city farm or whatever but an actual farmhouse with barns and fields. I know the countryside starts so suddenly, for example when you head down into Sussex on the Brighton railway line you go through a certain tunnel and it is goodbye suburban sprawl and hello woods and fields.
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Perhaps around Ewell? I know there are farms around Tadworth, but that's a bit further out. Or maybe Orpington?
 
Paul_Exeter said:
I've always wanted to know where the closest working farm to the Square Mile is nowadays? Not a country park, city farm or whatever but an actual farmhouse with barns and fields. I know the countryside starts so suddenly, for example when you head down into Sussex on the Brighton railway line you go through a certain tunnel and it is goodbye suburban sprawl and hello woods and fields.
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It’s a good point Paul. I’m not sure really, but surely around the high beech area near Epping. That is very rural and only 20 odd miles from central London.
 
I've been catching up with this series on YouTube, I think it was on BBC4 originally, about the history of certain streets in London. It's called The Secret History of Our Streets. This one is Calendonian Road.
 
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staticgirl said:
When you leave Moor Park station in the NW there are cattle and sheep in the fields surrounding it. You'd think you were a million miles away from London
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And they are bringing back cattle to graze up on Hampstead heath, so I read on a sign up there last week. It does feel very 'country', apart from the loads of people.
 
Dick Turpin said:
What are the actual boundaries of the city of London anyway….??. Some people have some funny ideas about it. I know some who think the city extends even into commercial street, which is nonsense.

Walk past the Aldgate pump and you are in the east end, not the city (technically at least)

Personally, I’ve thought that the actual square mile are those places that lie inside the locations of the old city gates. Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate, Moorgate and Newgate.
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This is an excellent way to see how the City of London grew. . .
 
Dick Turpin said:
What are the actual boundaries of the city of London anyway….??. Some people have some funny ideas about it. I know some who think the city extends even into commercial street, which is nonsense.

Walk past the Aldgate pump and you are in the east end, not the city (technically at least)

Personally, I’ve thought that the actual square mile are those places that lie inside the locations of the old city gates. Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate, Moorgate and Newgate.
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You missed off Billingsgate.
 
Dick Turpin said:
It’s a good point Paul. I’m not sure really, but surely around the high beech area near Epping. That is very rural and only 20 odd miles from central London.
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Can't recall any farms at High Beach. Some stables and things. Probably have to go out to Waltham Abbey before you get a proper farm?

I was astonished when I found out Epping Forest is actually a proper forest...! Also has some Fortean connections that are worth repeating:
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6 000 acres worth. Ghost stories, legends about Dick Turpin, wallabies, hills where things roll uphill, you name it, Epping Forest has it...
 
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