Names in London suggest its history. Shepherds Bush. That's in the centre. Back in the days when one walked around what is now central London.
Now we have a new initiative to get Londoners and visitors walking more around the city. London already had maps showing walking times between some central stations. So did Singapore. Now London has issued some walking maps.
They are only for the centre. However, out at Hatch End station on the Lioness line, Euston to Watford, you will see a map on the platform by the ticket office, showing you a walking route called the London loop, around London, linking landmarks in the countryside of outer London.
London Loop sign. Photo by Angela Lansbury.
Grimsdyke Road
Near Hatch End station is a road called Grimsdyke, running from the main street, a wide street with wide pavements, accurately named the Broadway, parallel to the railway line.
Why Grimsdyke?
An Indian friend of mine from Toastmasters meeting two Monday evening each month near Harrow on the Hill station, erroneously mispronounced it as Grim's Dick. Very funny, since in English dick is slang for male organ.
I was able to enlighten her that the pronunciation is dike, rhyming with Mike. A dyke was originally a border, build up like a dam exaggerated with a shallow from the dugout earth. Keeping people, animals, wanderers, friends and foes, to know where one area started and another ended. Perhaps it was like the camber on a road, helping to keep rain on the crops and off the walking and riding areas.
Grimsdyke Hotel
The loop runs along the original dyke, which passes Grimsdyke Hotel, which was home to Gilbert, who wrote the words, the librettos, for the popular Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.
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| Angela Lansbury with Map In The Entrance To Grimsdyke Hotel. Photo by Trevor Sharot. |
The house is now a hotel which has afternoon teas in summer, magnificent trees and plants, the historic timbered interior, and operattas seasons. A good place to start or end your walk. (Or for those who would rather sit than walk. Park granny or grandad with a gammy leg there, while you take your walking enthusiasts off for a walk.
London, like many British cities, also offers free or paid for walking tours around trails, such as historic, ghosts, Shakespeare, the Beatles.
If you take the train from central London across to Europe, many European cities offer free walking tours. Sometimes the free tours are run by companies which offer other paid for tours. They hope that after taking the free tour you will sign up for a second tour with the same guide or another guide. You are given a free city map which lists all the tours. Sometimes a few, some or most of the walkers give the tour guide a tip. The tour guide might be practising their foreign languages. Or they might be promoting their city. Or getting a free drink from a cafe where you stop for a break.
Or running their own paid for private tours on the side. They might even have to pay the company to take the tour, rather than being paid!
Photograph Maps
If you want to be sure of a free tour, just take a map and guide yourself. If you don't want to waste paper, photograph the map on your phone. If you have a foreign phone and cannot link to the local network without running up a charge, you can photograph the map on the phone of somebody else who had a phone with a local connection.
We did this in London. My husband returned from a trip to Singapore and accidentally took his Singapore phone with us into central London. I downloaded the TFL tube map, and he was able to photograph it onto his foreign network phone for no charge.
If you are out hiking, and cannot be sure of a WIFI connection in the mountains, photograph the local map, or download it when you have a connection in the local hotel, or your home before your travel trip. Then you can see it in your photo gallery. Or share it with others in your group.
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